


The Ghost of the Enterprise

by PeterHaleforAlpha



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Crew as Family, Gen, Hurt!Spock, Minor Spock/Nyota Uhura, POV Multiple, Post-Star Trek Beyond, just a normal adventure for our beloved crew
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-10-17
Packaged: 2019-06-13 11:22:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15363525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeterHaleforAlpha/pseuds/PeterHaleforAlpha
Summary: A few days after they returned to their 5-year-mission on the new Enterprise the crew encounter another Federation ship. The USS Ikarus. There shouldn't be another Federation vessel so far out in space and before the Enterprise can make contact the Ikarus starts firing at them.The Enterprise gets away with little damage - except for Spock getting gravely injured during the attack - but the ship has several failures after that, for example the transporters aren't working.Just like a ghost has possessed the Enterprise!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys :D
> 
> so this is my NaNo fic from last year. So far I hadn't the energy to look at it again but now I would love to share this work with you.  
> It's completely finished, just needs a little few things changed, so I am fairly certain I can provide a regular update schedule (this is so new to me and it makes me so proud xD). I was thinking of one chapter per week, so every Friday!
> 
> This fic will have no ships except the canon ones because I just wanted to write a normal "episode" that would fit into the Star Trek world. Of course this means that Jim, Bones and Spock all love each other deeply because this is canon.
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy it and I would love to hear what you think of it in form of a comment :)

“Hey, Bones, you’re ready?” Jim asked the moment he had entered medbay. “Ten minutes till the mission starts. I thought I would swing by and pick you - what the hell are you doing?”

Leonard was standing over several boxes and getting stuff out of them, putting them in closets. “What the hell does it look like?” 

“Like you’re unpacking boxes.” 

Leonard grinned amused. “You’re smarter than I thought.”

“We have a mission in ten.” Jim pointed back to the door. “There is enough time to unpack those boxes after.” 

Leonard stopped in his doing and turned around to Jim. “From experience I don’t think I will. There is always something happening on those missions and I will have patients after this. So I will use the time I have now. Those boxes are standing around for days now because I still need to break in the new crew members. They are way too overenthusiastic. Especially this kid Connors.”

“Hey, Bones, don’t say that. He is a good doctor.” 

“That’s why I send him down to accompany you on your mission.”

Jim opened his mouth in astonishment, unable to say anything at all. Doctor Connors was fun and entertaining but it wouldn’t be the same without Leonard. “Come on, can’t I do anything to persuade you to come with me?” 

“Hell no. I never liked beaming down to those planets and now I have a good excuse to stay behind. Connors is completely capable of keeping you safe, Captain.” 

“I know, it’s just…” Jim pouted. In the end he just crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Fine. See you later then.” Jim turned around, left medbay, and made his way to the transporter room. His whole away team was already assembled. Spock was standing in the middle, three security officers right behind him and Doctor Connors at his left. 

He stepped forward the moment Jim had entered the room. “It’s an honour to accompany you on this mission, Sir,” he said with way too much enthusiasm and suddenly Jim realized what Leonard had said. Jim sighed internally and wished to have Leonard by his side. Still, he obtained his professional captain facade. 

“Likewise, Doctor. Are we ready?” He looked into the round and stopped when his gaze fell on Spock. His first officer nodded and without needing to say more words everyone stepped on their spots on the transporter platform.

He went on the spot right next to Spock. “Do you think he is mad at me?” he whispered over to him. 

“I am not sure to whom you are referring, Captain.” 

“Bones! He didn’t want to come. He is probably mad at me for some reason. Right?” 

Spock just raised an eyebrow. “I do not have the necessary information to answer this question.” 

“You’re a big help, do you know that?” 

“I’m always happy to be of assistance, Sir.” 

Jim scoffed. He knew that Spock was messing with him, every time he used those human phrases. He was making fun of him and Jim didn’t like it. He wanted to retort with a smart answer but the energy beams around his body activated and he was pulled into a thousand little pieces just to get put together down on the planet. Instantly Jim forgot what he wanted to tell Spock and just looked around in awe. Jim had been on many many planets before but he was fascinated every time anew, especially when the planet was as beautiful as this one. At first sight it looked like a normal forest where they landed but there was something in the air that made it almost magical. Little sparks were flying around as it seemed. Spock had already his tricorder in hand to scan their surroundings.

“No life signs in our near facility, Sir.” 

Jim nodded while still looking around in awe. “Let’s stay together,” Jim said. Normally he would split up and especially on a planet where they were alone. But he had Leonard’s voice in his head, telling him that he would have patients at the end of this mission. Out of spite Jim wanted to prove him wrong. This time no one would get hurt and staying together was the first step to make this happen. 

It was only a common exploration mission, just to collect some new data from this planet. Normally nothing should happen but Leonard was right. Most of the times something  _ did _ happen, but not today. Today they all would come home safely and Jim could rub it into Leonard’s face. 

They walked around the woods in three rows. Two of the security officers in front, then Spock and himself, and in the end Connors and the third security officer. Nothing could happen like this. At least Jim hoped nothing would happen.

“Anything interesting so far, Mr. Spock?” Jim asked.

“Indeed. It’s fascinating.” 

Jim smiled. He loved when Spock used this word. Instead of asking he just waited for Spock to elaborate. “The air - although breathable for us - contains something I have never seen before.”

“You mean those shining sparks?” There was no other word that came to Jim’s mind when he looked at this phenomenon. It looked like electricity was running through the air without the actual harm that came with it. It felt warm and welcoming.

“Most likely, yes.” 

“Can you say what it is?” 

Spock shook his head. “Not yet, sir. I will need to analyze the data more closely when we are back on the Enterprise.” 

Jim nodded in understanding. “Do you think we will find anything else unusual on this planet?”  

“It makes no sense to dwell on possibilities. Why should I make an assumption? Either we will find something and you will see it. Or this is the only fascinating thing on this planet and we will return to the Enterprise so we can study it.” 

Sometimes Jim forgot that he was speaking to a vulcan when he talked to Spock. Of course it would make no sense to make assumptions. You could just wait and see what’ll happen. “Okay, then let’s just find out.” 

They remained two more hours on the planet before returning to the Enterprise. They didn’t find anything else but at least they were all unharmed. 

“This was amazing, Sir, if I may say so.” Connors smiled broadly over his whole face.

“I’m pleased you had a good time, doctor. Why don’t you give Doctor McCoy a full report? He surely would like to hear everything about this mission. He was really upset that he couldn’t come because he had other stuff to do.” 

“Of course, Captain. I won’t let out any details.”

Jim smiled wickedly. He knew he would get payback for this but he needed a little revenge after Leonard had just stood him up.

 

The payback came a few hours later in the mess hall. Jim had ended his shift and was enjoying a nice meal when Leonard rushed in and just grabbed his plate. “I just went over your medical files again. You should really eat a little healthier.” He put a plate full of green stuff in front of him.

“Come on, Bones, I’m in good shape.” 

Leonard just raised an eyebrow. Sometimes Jim wondered if Spock and Leonard practiced this unique technique together. “Now you are. We want it to stay that way, don’t we?” 

Jim mumbled something incomprehensible. He knew he could try to fight for his right to eat what he wanted but he knew Leonard. It would get a tough fight and maybe Jim deserved this a tiny little bit. So he just put a fork full of green salad into his mouth.

“So I heard your little trip was good?” 

Jim shook his shoulders. “It was a beautiful planet, yes. Just missed you there.” 

Leonard stopped eating. He had just started with Jim’s old meal. “Nothing happened. There was no need for a medical crew member on the team in the first place.” 

Jim laughed quietly. “Do you really think I take you along because I think we need a doctor on those missions?” When Leonard didn’t say anything, Jim kept going, “I take you along because it’s more fun when you complain about every tiny little thing we encounter. You would have hated those little sparks, probably afraid that they would eat our skin or something.”

“They sound terrible.” 

Jim smiled widely. “See? This is what I missed.” 

“The next time I’ll be there again, no worries.” 

Jim put his fork down and just watched Leonard for several seconds. “So you’re not mad or something?”

Leonard looked confused. “Why should I be mad?” 

Jim just shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t know. Just thought because you didn’t want to come that I had done something.” 

Leonard sighed loudly. “Jim, I just had work. Seriously, it’s only a few days that we are back in space and somehow I think I’m already behind. We have a lot of new crew on board and I need to have my team under control. The medbay needs to function perfectly. If we are in a crisis I need to trust them. And I need fully packed closets.” 

“I get it. I still sit in front of the screen every evening and try to remember all those new names. As the captain I should know them all.” Jim always took great pride in it that he knew every single name of every single crew member even when he didn’t work with them directly. It was his crew, his family, and he should know them all. “Do you like your new team?”

“I picked them, didn’t I?” 

Jim swayed his head. “You didn’t seem too keen on Connors to be honest.” 

“He is just a little eager to proof himself. I would never hang out with someone like that. He is way too cheery for my taste. But he has amazing credentials. He is a talented doctor. We can’t ask for more.”

“He will drive you insane, won’t he?”

“Absolutely.”

Jim laughed out loud. Of course Jim knew that Leonard was not one hundred percent serious. After all he had picked Doctor Connors himself. And he wouldn’t have if he knew that he couldn’t work with him. Actually a little happy attitude from someone wouldn’t harm medbay. Some of the crew were still completely afraid of Doctor McCoy. Regarding this problem Doctor Connors could turn the table. 

“What about you, Jim? What do you think of the new crew so far?” 

They were all amazing Starfleet officers. He sat with Spock over the applications for several days and only picked the best ones. But thinking about the cause why they had to replace so many of his crew, it still saddened him. The attack of Krall had been several months ago and Jim still thought about it every day, especially now where they were all back in space, together on the Enterprise. 

“They are fine officers, Bones.”

Bones furrowed his brows in suspicion. “You okay, Jim?”

Before Jim could answer and pretend to be okay, Uhura’s voice sounded over the communication system of the ship. “Captain Kirk to the bridge.” 

“See you, Bones,” he said and got up. He stopped at a communicator. “On my way,” he reported and then made his way to the nearest turbolift. The one minute he spent in there he had time to think. He hated those feelings and he tried to push them down over and over again. Of course he knew that nothing had been his fault and that he saved a whole lot of his crew. But still, he felt guilty. He still felt as if he had failed all the others he wasn’t able to save that day. And Leonard would have only told him exactly that. Jim was tired of hearing it. He just hoped it would get better eventually. 

Before the doors slid aside he straightened himself and took a deep breath. Right now it was not the time for these thoughts. If they called him to the bridge although his shift was already over there had to be something that Spock couldn’t handle alone. 

“What’s the situation?” he asked and walked right over to his captain’s chair. Spock got up the second Jim arrived there. 

“A vessel is approaching,” Spock reported and returned back to his station. 

“What kind of vessel? Friend or foe?” 

“We do not know yet, sir,” Chekov said and turned around a little. “It’s still too far away.” 

Jim tensed up a little. He hoped it would not end like the last time, the Enterprise destroyed and hundreds of souls lost. “Nothing at all?” He looked over to Spock because he was quicker than anyone around him on the bridge.

“We’re approaching fast, Sir, maybe another minute and I can tell you more.” 

Jim hated waiting but right now he couldn’t do anything other than that. Shortly he thought about turning on the yellow alert but he knew this idea only came from his fragile mind. Before he came up here he got reminded of how many he had lost the last time he had captained a ship. He was just afraid that it would repeat itself. And this reaction would just be out of fear. So he forced himself to remain calm and wait for more information before he started to react. 

“Fascinating,” Spock said after a while.

“What, Spock?”

“The signature is Federation.” 

Jim furrowed his brows. “On screen,” he gave the order and looked at the screen as soon as the ship was on it. “So far out here?” he mumbled to himself and then turned back to Uhura. “Hail them!” 

Uhura was already pushing buttons. “I’ve tried, Captain. No answer so far.” 

“Which ship is it?” Actually the Enterprise should be the only Federation vessel so far out in space. Something was weird about this but Jim couldn’t pinpoint it yet. Maybe it was just a ship that got lost and was glad that it finally got some help. 

Chekov magnified the image on the screen but before they could read the inscription the ship fired a phaser blast at them. The whole Enterprise was shaking and Jim had to claw to his chair to stay on it. “Shields up. Red alert,” he shouted, quickly looking over the bridge, making sure that everyone was alright. Immediately the bridge was shining in red light. “Uhura, try to hail them again.” 

If they wanted a fight, they would get one but Jim still wanted to solve this peacefully. They were both members of the Federation. Why should this ship attack them? 

“No reaction, Captain.” 

“Captain, I think I found something,” Spock said. “It appears-” A loud explosion swallowed Spock’s next words. Jim was blown off his chair and landed on the ground. The ringing in his ears made it hard to concentrate. He had no idea what just happened. Their shields were up. There was no way that the other ship had weapons that could get right through it. Not if it was Federation as well. The Enterprise was one of the most advanced ships in the Fleet. It couldn’t lose to another one with just one blow. He tried to shake the dizziness off and get up. Every movement hurt but this didn’t matter right now. They were still in a crisis.

“What the hell was that?” he asked and noticed the smoke on the bridge. Suddenly there were two hands around his arm, trying to help him up. 

“Are you alright, sir?” 

Jim needed a second to realize that it was Sulu’s voice. Then he nodded at once. “Yeah, I’m okay. What happened?” He repeated his question and looked around. With all the smoke it was hard to see what was going on. Then he found the source of the smoke and Jim felt his blood run cold. The science station was only pieces now.  And Commander Spock was lying on the ground. Motionless. 

Out of instinct Jim wanted to rush forward to his friend, to see if he was okay. But he was the captain. He needed to keep everything together. He pressed the button of the communicator on his chair. “”Kirk to McCoy. We need medical assistance on the bridge. Now!” 

Then he turned around to the screen, fully aware that Uhura had already crawled over to Spock. Someone took care of him so he could take care of the rest of the problem. “What’s the status?” 

“They haven’t fired another shot, Sir. This was something else,” Chekov reported. 

Jim just nodded. He had assumed something like that. “What is the ship doing now? Are they preparing to fire again?” 

Chekov shook his head. “It doesn’t seem like it.” 

“Prepare our weapons.” Jim wanted to be ready if they tried to start another attack. Starfleet didn’t shoot first but they certainly could end a fight. Jim wondered if the crew on the other vessel were still Starfleet officers and if yes, what had happened to them that they would do something like that. Yet again he was reminded of Krall, a good example what the thought of abandonment had done to them. If this ship had a similar history they could just be angry with the Federation for not helping and had just lashed out at them. 

“Keep a close eye on them, Ensign,” Jim said and jumped up to get over to Spock and Uhura. Although he was the captain right now he couldn’t do anything until the other ship made its next move. Of course he could just leave but Jim wanted to find out some more. He would only do that if it was really necessary. Jim would wait before he opened fire until they would repeat their first phaser fire. Until then Jim had time and he could check on his friend. 

“How is he?” he asked when he kneeled down. 

Uhura looked up, eyes wet with tears, and she looked shook. It was rare that Jim had seen her like this and immediately his heart made a fearful jump. 

She must have noticed because she was quick to assure, “He’s alive, but only barely.” 

Jim let out a relieved sigh. At least he was alive. If Spock was alive there was still hope that he’d be okay. Leonard had worked wonders before. He could do now. As if on cue Leonard barged in. 

“Over here, Bones.” Jim stood up to make room for Leonard. And while Leonard was running his medical tricorder over Spock’s body Jim looked at his first officer for the first time. His whole upper body and face was burned. Also there was blood - a lot of it. Jim couldn’t see where it was coming from.

“Damn it, Spock,” Leonard muttered and pressed a hypo spray into his neck. “I need to get him to medbay, Jim. Right now.” 

Jim nodded and returned to his chair, pushing the communicator. “Scotty, I need a transport from the bridge to medbay.” 

“Cannae do, sir, sorry. Something’s messing with the system. I don’t have access to the transporter right now.” 

Jim sighed and then turned around. “Ensign Trevis, come over here.” He was one of the new crew members. He looked a little shook. As far as Jim could remember this was the first ship he served on. It was probably his first real fight. Maybe it would be good to have him off the bridge for a little while. “Help Doctor McCoy bring Commander Spock down to medbay.”

The ensign jumped up immediately. “Aye, sir.” 

Jim looked over to Uhura. He knew that she would love to accompany them, hell, he had the urge to go with them but right now he needed her, with all of her focus. He returned to her side, got close to her so that no one else would hear. “I need you here, Lieutenant. Are you up for the job?” 

Uhura pulled her gaze away from Spock and up to Jim. She nodded determined. “Of course. I’ll do anything to help.” 

“Good. Then back to your station.” 

Jim noticed how she squeezed Leonard’s shoulder in the passing and then returned to her seat, starting to press all the different buttons.

“Captain, the ship is firing up its weapons,” Chekov yelled over the bridge. 

“Evasive maneuvers,” he ordered and returned back to his chair. He shot Leonard one last look, asking in silence if Spock would be okay. Leonard seemed to understand but Jim didn’t like the answer. 

“Not sure,” he mouthed. He would never say those words out loud on the bridge, not in such a situation. Everyone needed to be focused on their work and Jim knew how distracting this was. He just felt it. He tried not to think of Spock, instead to trust in Leonard’s abilities and let him do his job like he needed to do his. It was easier when they left the bridge. Seeing Spock like this had made it hard to focus on his duties. 

“Shields down to 70%,” Chekov reported after two hits. 

“Return fire, Mr. Chekov. Show them what we got.” Jim still didn’t know what was going on here but he wouldn’t make the same mistakes twice. He wouldn’t let his crew die. “Target their weapons system.” Although Jim wanted to win this fight he still wanted to find out what was going on here, why another Federation ship was firing at them. And he only could do that if the people on the other ship were still alive after this fight. 

“Their weapons are disabled, sir,” Chekov said with a cheer in his voice.

“Try to hail them again, Lieutenant Uhura,” Jim said without taking his eyes off of the screen. Now he could see the huge letters marked on the ship. USS Ikarus.

“Yet again, no answer.” 

“Open a comm link for me, please.” 

She pushed a few buttons and then nodded at him. “This is Captain James T. Kirk from the USS Enterprise. If I remember correctly I’m speaking to Captain Simmons. I don’t know what your motivation was to fire at us but I’m hoping we can solve our differences peacefully now.” 

Jim waited for an answer. The only reaction he got though was the other ship jumping to warp speed. 

“Shall I pursue it, Captain?” 

“Follow it, Sulu, but remain some distance.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Stand down Red Alert.” Jim sighed quietly and looked around the bridge. His eyes got caught on Spock’s destroyed station. This accident still bothered him. There was no way that it could have been linked to the first attack of the Ikarus. There had to be another explanation. 

“Kirk to Scott,” he said into his communicator. 

“Scott here. The engines are running smoothly and we only have light damages to the ship. Nothing that a little care couldn’t fix.”

“I need you up on the bridge.”

“Be there in a minute.” 

Jim had to fight the urge to call medbay as well. They probably already arrived there but Leonard would be deep down into his work, deep down in saving Spock’s life. He couldn’t distract him. He just needed to have patience and wait for Leonard to call him, with whatever news this would be. The thought just going down there crossed his mind as well but he couldn’t leave the bridge in such a situation. The USS Ikarus could alter their strategy and try to attack again. Jim needed to remain on this chair, no matter how much he wanted to be with Spock right now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New Friday, new chapter!
> 
> I want to say thank you to all those who left kudos and took the time to comment. You really are awesome people!

Leonard always expected the worst when Jim called him up on the bridge for a medical emergency. Of course Leonard had felt the hit on their ship and the following Red Alert meant trouble. Leonard had been on his way back to medbay when Jim’s order came over the ship’s communicator. He sped up his pace, made a quick stop in medbay to get his medkit and then ran up to the nearest turbolift. 

Every time something like that happened Leonard asked himself which of his friends he had to save today. So many people up on the bridge were his closest friends and he didn’t want to lose any of them. But as soon as the doors of the lift opened he managed a focused mind so he could concentrate on his work and not get distracted by emotions. 

As he heard Jim’s shout he had to search where his captain was. He hesitated - only for a second - but he did. And he knew that this was unprofessional. But this was not just anyone. This was Spock. 

Anyhow Leonard tried to push all those bad memories from their last mission down and concentrate on the problem on hand. He scanned Spock quickly to get a picture how bad it was. And it was really bad. Spock was barely alive and Leonard had no idea if he could save him. Especially after he heard the news that the transporter wasn’t working. Leonard hated those things. They never worked when you actually needed them.

So Leonard didn’t waste any more time and hauled Spock up even before Ensign Trevis was next to him and took Spock’s other side. Together they entered the turbolift. 

Worriedly he looked at Spock whose head hung loosely down, and over it he noticed Trevis’ scared expression. “It’ll be alright. The Captain knows what he’s doing.” Learning about battle and being in one were two entirely different things and it could be scary as hell. Leonard had never had any difficulties with that. He was good in crisis, always had a natural talent to keep a cool head. That didn’t mean that he was never worried or afraid, that just meant that he knew how to prioritize and concentrate on the important stuff than to let his emotions take over. 

“What about Commander Spock? Will he be alright?” 

This kid couldn’t have developed any bond with the vulcan yet. They were barely a few days on this ship together and Spock was no one who greeted every new crew member with open arms. That was Jim’s job. 

“Honestly, I don’t know. I’ll do my best to help him, that’s for sure.” 

“I never thought it to be like this. I mean, sure, we had battle simulations, but it’s no comparison. The explosion was right there.” 

Leonard had noticed the destroyed science station. He was no engineer but it had seemed strange. Leonard had never encountered such a big blast after phaser fire. Of course there was a station or two that got overheated and hurt the person in front of it. But it were mild burns, maybe a head injury. Nothing like Spock. 

“The first time is always rough. Don’t think less of you because you’re scared. We’re all scared, just differently.” 

Trevis looked up, right over to Leonard, right into his eyes. “So you’re scared too?” 

“All the good damn time, kid. The trick is to work with this fear and not let it consume you.”

Trevis nodded, diverted his eyes and just seemed to look into nothingness. 

“I get it. Be brave, right?” 

Leonard smiled fondly. “You can put it that-” Leonard stopped when Spock moved in his arms. “Easy, Spock,” he said. 

Slowly Spock raised his head, looking blazingly around. “What?” 

“You’re hurt. We’re bringing you to medbay. Don’t move!” Right in this moment the turbolift stopped and Leonard had never been so grateful about it. He tried to push Spock forward, with the help of Trevis but Spock apparently wanted to stay. Although he was hurt he had still more strength than a human. 

“Spock, what the hell? Come on!” 

He shook his head. “I need to tell the Captain.” 

“This can wait. Right now I need to save your life. Do you hear me, Spock?” Leonard tried to get to his medkit and get some sedatives. He didn’t need an uncooperative patient at the moment, not when this patient could die any second. As if on cue Spock’s eyes rolled back into his sockets and his body went limp. Leonard had expected something like that, so he was more prepared than Trevis who pulled it down with Spock. Although Leonard was still 

half standing he laid Spock down fully on the ground. He feared that this little outburst had been counterproductive for Spock. The readings of the tricorder let his heart speed up.

“Trevis, get to medbay, get Doctor Connors and a defibrillator.” As if Spock’s heart had listened it just stopped in this second. A beeping warning sound came over the tricorder. “Hurry, Trevis.” Leonard saw the kid running out of the corner of his eye and prayed that he would be fast enough.

“Don’t you dare die on me, Spock,” Leonard ranted while performing the old CPR technique from Earth. Of course Leonard had learned it in training to become a doctor but he had only had to use this once before. And he still didn’t like it. “I dragged you with me a whole day over Altamid and I didn’t let you die there. I’m not going to let you die now. Not when I have everything here what I need to help you. You can’t do this to me. You can’t do this to Jim. And especially not Nyota.” Leonard wasn’t proud of himself for letting his emotions show like that but the events of Altamid were still pretty fresh on his mind. Leonard had feared to lose Spock there, not to be able to help him. 

 

And now he was on the Enterprise. He had everything he needed. Still, Spock was about to die. Leonard couldn’t do much to help him here on the floor of the turbolift. Of course he knew that sometimes there wasn’t anything he could do, no matter how good of a doctor he was. Sometimes fate just took them away from them. But hell, Leonard would fight fate this time and the next when it came to his friends. He would try anything in his power to save Spock. He wouldn’t let him go without a fight. 

After an eternity Connors arrived at the scene with the device. He didn’t hesitate for a second but get it started. Leonard knew that he made a good decision to choose Connors to be part of his crew. He only had seen him in action once and Leonard knew that he wanted that kid. As much as he could annoy him on a regular basis he was one of the most talented doctors he had ever seen and Leonard had worked with quite a lot. 

Leonard pulled back after Connors had finished applying the suckers. He hadn’t even needed to tell him to keep in mind that he was a Vulcan and that his heart was not at the usual place. Okay, maybe Leonard hammering on Spock’s stomach had been indication enough to remember this. 

While Connors started the device Leonard pulled out his medical tricorder again and monitored the outcome. The first try didn’t change anything. Spock’s heart was still awfully quiet. 

After the third pulse of electricity though it started to beep in a regular rhythm. Leonard let out a relieved sigh. Of course Spock was not over the hill yet but the first obstacle had been defeated. 

As if they had worked together for years they only needed to share a look. Leonard grabbed Spock under his arms and Connors took the feet. They carried him the few steps into the hall and put him on the stretcher that Trevis had brought with him. 

“Thanks,” he mumbled to both of them. Without them Spock would have been dead by now. And Leonard didn’t want to imagine this at all. “Let’s get him to medbay.” 

Someway on the way over there the Red Alert stopped. Leonard noticed it but didn’t really care. For him the Red Alert wasn’t over yet, not with Spock on his table, barely holding on to life. It only had started. 

While Connors fetched the necessary equipment out of the new stocked cabinets, Leonard started to cut off Spock’s uniform and the shirt underneath. He thanked god that he had skipped the last mission and finally took the time to unpack all those boxes. He had wanted to have done it even before the launch but as life went, there was another emergency where his skill set was needed and he only arrived on the ship the day they went out. There was no time at all to get his medbay the way he had wanted. And it was important, as proven now. A fully stocked and sorted cabinet could make all the difference. A single second could change it all. 

Out of the corner of his eye Leonard noticed Trevis still standing a few steps behind him. “You should go back to the bridge.” After all the Captain had given him a clear order. “You can’t help here anymore.” 

“Yes, Sir. Anything I should tell the Captain?” 

Leonard sighed internally. He wished he could give some good news on the way but he couldn’t say anything yet. Spock’s heart stopped once already, it could do it again. So he shook his head in the end. “Not yet. Too early to say anything.” 

“Okay.” And with that the kid was gone. 

It was awfully quiet around them, except the constant humming of the biobed. Leonard looked up, studied Spock’s vitals and wasn’t too happy about them. “Connors, we need blood too.” As much as Leonard had on his hands the Vulcan had lost too much already. On top of all the burned flesh Spock had been hit with little parts of metal from his station. They were stuck in his body and this was the first thing that Leonard needed to start on. The procedure would cost him even more blood. 

“We don’t have much on stock, Doctor,” said Connors and returned with everything they needed. He had only a few bags of blood in hand. Connors was right. This was not enough. This would never be enough. 

“Why don’t we-” Leonard stopped his question when he remembered that he had planned an appointment for tomorrow with Spock to get a little more of his blood. The problem was that Spock was half Vulcan. Vulcan blood wasn’t good for him, neither was human blood. Over the last few months they hadn’t seen each other this often so Leonard had no opportunity to get some more from Spock himself. This was all bad luck. He shook his head in the end. “We have to make do somehow.” After all Spock was half Vulcan and he had claimed more than once that he was far more resilient than humans. But even Spock couldn’t survive everything. 

 

They made do somehow. Leonard had no idea how much time had passed. He lost track of time when he was so deep in work, when he was fighting to keep one of his friends alive. And Spock was alive in the end, still not healthy but alive. Leonard was still worried that he might die in the next few hours. He had done anything that he could but the blood loss took its toll and they had no provision. It was up to Spock now if he would make it or not. 

While he was washing his hands, Connors stepped up to him. “There is still a chance that he might survive, sir.” 

Leonard nodded tiredly. He knew that there was still a chance, especially because it was Spock. This man was stubborn. “I know.” Leonard would just be happier if it was already a certainty and not only a possibility. 

“I’ve studied a while under Doctor M’Benga, if you know him.” 

Leonard looked up. “I’ve heard of him. He practices on New Vulcan, right?” 

“Yeah. I’ve been there for 6 months with him. There is an old technique of Vulcans that could save Commander Spock.” 

Leonard had learned as much about Vulcans as he could since he became CMO of this ship, knowing full well that the first officer was a Vulcan. He wanted to be prepared if necessary. So he knew what Connors was talking of. “You mean the vulcan healing trance? I’ve never saw one.” 

“Me neither but I’ve seen Vulcans survive that I thought were as good as dead. If Commander Spock was to use this special technique he might have a very good chance.”

“So how do we get him to do it?” He looked back to Spock, still soundly asleep.

Connors sighed. “That I don’t know. The few times I witnessed it it came natural to them. They knew when it was necessary or when it wasn’t. So Commander Spock should feel it himself and act on it. I have no idea how we could help him with that.” 

Although Leonard had studied Vulcans a little closer he was far away from actually understanding their culture and strange methods. For him pushing emotions down was still completely unhealthy and Leonard wasn’t the best to interact with Vulcans. They were far too logical for Leonard. Even Spock who was only half Vulcan had all the worst parts of them. That’s why Leonard always fought with Spock. The damn logic of his was too frustrating sometimes. 

Right now he was grateful for him to be Vulcan. So he had a chance, at least if they could somehow persuade him to use the Vulcan healing trance. Who knew, maybe he already was in it? 

“How do you know he’s not in it already?” 

Connors pointed to the biobed. “His vitals should be different. His heart rate is way too high for a trance.” 

“So you say, we need to wake him up somehow so that we can talk to him?” 

Connors shrugged. “If he has difficulties to find his way maybe it’s the only option.” 

Leonard sighed. Sometimes it was damn hard to be a doctor on a ship with so many different species. “Let’s wait a little while before we do that.” After all Leonard still needed to give Jim an update. Actually he had been quite surprised that the Captain hadn’t come for a visit yet. He knew Jim. He knew he was as worried as he was, maybe even more. So the situation on the bridge was more serious than it had seemed in the beginning or he grew up a little and was able to wait until Leonard was ready to give him a report. 

Leonard sat down on his desk, took the time to take a deep breath and lean back. This last hour - or two or three? - had been exhausting. Before he had to deal with Jim he deserved a quiet little moment. He also closed his eyes for a second, just to be interrupted by the sound of a Red Alert.

Leonard opened his eyes immediately. “What now?” he murmured and hoped that no one else got hurt but still knew that he had to prepare for the worst. “Connors, get ready for possible casualties.” But as soon as Leonard had finished the sentence the Red Alert was turned off again. Not even a shake of the ship in the middle. Of course Leonard was lucky that nothing happened but it was still a little strange. 

He had to call Jim anyway so he pressed the button in front of him. “McCoy to Kirk!”

“Bones, how is he?” 

Leonard had to smile. Jim was nothing else than predictable. “Alive,” he said and made a little pause. “For now at least. Why don’t you come down and I can give you a full report?” 

“Would love to, Bones, but something is going on with my ship and I can’t leave right now. I’ll send Uhura to you, okay?”

“Yes, that’s good.” Maybe Uhura knew a little more about this healing trance and how they could help Spock to get into it. 

Five minutes later Nyota walked in. As Leonard knew her she wasted no time. She walked straight to Spock’s bed and then turned to Leonard. “How is he?” she asked while grabbing his hand gently. 

“He’s alive as I said, and that is a lot.”

“Len, tell me.” 

“We lost him once, I’m not sure if Trevis mentioned it.” 

Nyota looked down and nodded. “He told the Captain and Jim couldn’t keep it a secret from me. But only this once?” 

Leonard nodded. “Thankfully yes. I’m not sure if I could have brought him back a second time. He is stable for now. We removed any foreign objects out of his body and we started to repair his burned flesh but he lost a lot of blood and he is weak. It’s basically up to him if he’ll make it or not. I can’t do anymore for him, I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t be, Len, I know you did everything you could. You always do.” 

All of a sudden Nyota had rounded the bed and hugged Leonard tightly. Although Leonard was a little surprised by the sudden embrace he returned it and pulled her a little closer even. “I’ve almost lost him a few months ago. I can’t go through this all over again,” she mumbled into his shirt. 

“He’s strong, Ny. He’ll be fine.” 

“I hope so. We all need him.” 

Leonard rubbed soothingly over her back. “Do you know anything about the Vulcan healing trance? Doctor Connors mentioned it to me. It might help Spock to survive this.” 

She shook her head. “Not really. Spock mentioned it before and his ability to control his pain if it’s necessary but nothing in particular.” 

Of course, it would have been too easy if Nyota would have known the special button he had to press on Spock’s body to help him into this trance. But Leonard wouldn’t give up on him. Spock was not dead yet. Right now he couldn’t do anything though so he tried to distract himself. He pulled away a little, but kept an arm still around Nyota’s shoulder. “What was Jim talking about when he said that the ship was acting weird?”

“You saw the Red Alert, right?” 

Leonard nodded. After all the Red Alert was designed to be seen on the whole ship. 

“Well, no one activated it. It started on its own - and stopped on its own as well. Scotty had no idea what happened.” 

Leonard furrowed his brows. “That’s weird.” 

“Yeah, but maybe just a little bug. As it seems Spock’s station was an energy overload of some sorts.”

“No relation to the attack then?” 

Nyota shook her head. “Scotty took a look at it. There seems no relation to it.”

“What about that ship that attacked us? Who is it? Klingon? Romulan?” Leonard had only been shortly on the bridge and his focus had been on Spock. He had no time to look around or on the screen to get to know who was firing on them. This was not Leonard’s job. He was there to save lives. All the other crew members on the bridge were there to keep them save from alien threats.

“It was a Federation ship.” 

“What?” Leonard looked at Nyota full of disbelief. “These guys should be our friends. Why did they fire at us?”

“I’ve tried everything to get something from them but they ignored us.” 

“I don’t like this. If your friends starts firing on you it’s a bad sign.” 

“I doubt that there is still a Federation crew on this ship. I can’t imagine a whole crew to get rogue and abandon the Federation. There are always rogue Starfleet officers here and then, but a whole ship full of them? That’s very unlikely. My guess is they are all dead and someone else is piloting this ship or they were influenced by something to act not like themselves.” 

“Let’s hope for the former. I rather fight against some new aliens than deal with all of us going mad.” 

Nyota chuckled. “You are probably right.”

“Of course I am. Jim would just demand I find a cure for this madness. I’m not a miracle worker, no matter how much he believes it.” 

Nyota raised her head and smiled at him. “But sometimes you are.” 

Leonard rolled his eyes and sighed annoyed. “Not you too, Ny. I need to be a normal human being at least to one of my friends.”

“You are to Spock,” she said and smirked. “An annoying and over emotional human.” 

“Yeah, he always hated my emotional outbursts. I will have one at him when he wakes up, just to cheer him up.” 

Nyota pressed closer to Leonard. “He’ll love that.” 

“He’ll hate me so so much.” Leonard laughed and it felt so good. In the middle of a crisis, in the middle of emotional distress it was best to take a minute and just forget about all of it. He did the same in the cave on Altamid with Spock. The situation had been dire, far worse than the situation they were in now. And he had a normal conversation with Spock, to get their minds off of all of this.

It had helped to keep a clear head, not to lose all hope. And it helped now as well. Just joking around a little was a big relief. 

“I think he secretly likes you,” Nyota commented.

“God, I hope not.” 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back :)
> 
> I wanted to thank all of you who are following this story and who take the time to leave comments or kudos.
> 
> I hope you like the new chapter :D

Sometimes Jim hated to be stuck in this chair. He loved this chair with all his heart but sometimes he hated that it had to come first. Of course he knew that the whole crew was his responsibility and not just one member of it but still he wished he could be with Spock right now, just check on him for a few minutes but something was going on and Jim wouldn’t leave the bridge until he had found out what it was. 

“Sulu, what’s the distance?” 

“500.000 km. Either they haven’t noticed us or they don’t bother that we are following them.” 

Jim would feel a lot better if he knew who their new enemies were. He had discussed some theories with Uhura because Spock wasn’t there and Uhura was one of the brightest minds on the bridge crew. She had two possible options and Jim didn’t like either of them. 

But he hoped that it would be the Federation crew who had gone mad, in hope there was some way to help them. If the crew of the ship wasn’t Federation anymore that most likely meant that the originally crew might all be dead and Jim hated to lose such a big number of people. It would be a great loss. 

“Just keep it steady like this,” he ordered and stood up, took some steps, just to get the stiffness out of his body. He could spend the entire shift on this chair without feeling anything but today was different. Maybe his whole body felt stiff because he was worried sick. 

Spock was an outstanding Starfleet officer but more so, he was a close friend. Jim knew Bones pretty well, knew all the different nuances of his voice. Spock might be alive but he wasn’t out of the woods yet. It wasn’t sure yet if he would make it and Jim couldn’t focus with this kind of fear at the back of his head. Unfortunately he couldn’t do anything about it. Spock wouldn’t heal miraculously in the next two minutes and solve all their problems. He would stay in medbay and Jim had to do this one on his own. 

Of course he was never alone. He had his entire crew and every single one of them was extraordinary but Spock gave him assurance when he was around. It was easier to carry the responsibility when he knew Spock would call him out if he made a mistake. There were only a few in his crew that would say something to him if he was being stupid again. 

Right now there was no evident threat and still, Jim felt as if he was missing something, something he should have noticed already. He had the feeling that Spock would know, that Spock would have picked up on it already. 

Jim was good with instinct and his instinct told him that something was off but he wasn’t as good at analyzing. Maybe he just oversaw the first signs of what was coming. Maybe he just glanced at them without actually realizing that they were some kind of harbingers of evil. 

Either way he missed Spock and even if he had told Bones that he had no time to visit he was thinking that it might even help them. Talking to Spock, even if Spock couldn’t hear him, could help Jim figure out what was going on and what he was missing. 

He stopped his pace right behind Sulu and leaned a little forward. “Would you mind taking over for a little while?” Normally he would just give the order and leave the bridge but the reason why he was leaving didn’t feel exactly like a duty of the captain. He was just being a human right now and needed to see his friend.

Sulu turned around in his chair and shook his head. “No, of course not, captain.” His look clearly showed that he understood. “Take all the time you need. I’ll call you if something changes.” 

Jim gave him a sincere smile. “Thanks, Hikaru,” he said and patted him on the shoulder. He noticed the pitiful glance from Chekov from the side and felt awful right away. He needed to get off the bridge immediately. So he straightened and walked over to the turbolift. Sulu stood up and took his new spot in the captain’s chair. 

But before Jim was in the turbolift and out of sight they suddenly dropped out of warp and not in the kind way. Jim stumbled a few steps due to the change of speed and only didn’t fall because he steadied himself on the wall. He looked around if everyone was fine but they were all still seated in their chairs. 

He wanted to ask what happened when Sulu beat him to it. “What was that?” He looked at the young ensign who just took over for the helmsman. 

“I don’t know, Sir. I didn’t do anything at all. They are no unusual readings. We just dropped out of warp.” 

Jim took a few steps forward to get to his comm device on the arm of his chair when Sulu beat him to that too. “Mister Scott, what just happened to our warp drive?”

“I don’t know. My ship is roaring like a kitten. You’re sure you didn’t press the wrong button?” 

Sulu shook his head slightly and smirked to himself. “You’re sure you haven’t lost a big tool in some important chamber and it’s messing with our warp drive?” 

“Hey, lad, this was just mean.”

Sulu’s grin got wider. “Okay, seriously, Scotty, nothing unusual at your side?” 

“Nothing I can see.”

Sulu directed his attention back to the helm. “Try to engage warp 2, Ensign.” 

The Ensign pressed a few buttons and then shook his head. “It’s not working and I can’t figure out why. Everything seems okay.” 

“I’m going down to Scotty,” Jim said to Sulu. “Something  _ has _ to be wrong and he should find it.” 

“Aye, sir.” Jim only heard how Sulu told Scotty that he was coming down before the doors of the turbolift closed in front of him. And it was extremely quiet all of a sudden. The voices of the bridge had vanished and only the constant humming of the turbolift accompanied him now. So much for visiting Spock to get some advice and wisdom from him. Now it only felt a lot more like Jim should have already figured the problem out. All around them weird things happened and no one seemed to have any explanation for it. 

 

“Scotty, please tell me you found something in the meanwhile,” Jim introduced himself when he walked into the engine room. “Just something, no matter how small.”

“I went over everything again, Jim. There is nothing wrong with this ship.” 

Frustrated Jim ran a hand through his hair. “And still, all this weird stuff is happening. First Spock’s station, then the Red Alert and now this? Something has to be wrong.”

“If I didn’t know better I would say we have a ghost on board,” Scotty joked while turning around to the nearest console. “Maybe it’s a virus, a very well hidden one.” 

“A virus? When would we have gotten this on board?” 

“I don’t know, Jim, but the ship is certainly not just in the mood to mess around with us. A virus or something similar to it is the only explanation why the Enterprise is acting up. It’s only strange that everything  _ seems _ fine. If a virus would have gotten into the computer system of the Enterprise the damage would be visible. It would destroy all the programs.” 

Jim positioned himself behind Scotty and studied the screen himself. He might be not as bright when it came to those things as Scotty was but Jim had basic knowledge. All  _ seemed _ fine. “So you say, it’s not a virus?” 

“Normally I would have ruled it out immediately but I have not the faintest clue what else it should be.”

“Maybe it isn’t a virus like any we have seen before. Maybe it doesn’t leave behind a trace to follow. Or only hard to follow. How deep can you get into the system? How deep can you dig?” 

“I can dig into the deepest and darkest hole of my baby if you ask me to, sir.”

“Then do it. I want to know what is happening so I can react to it.” Jim sighed loudly. “And I don’t want a repeat to what happened to Spock. One casualty is enough.” 

At once it got completely quiet between them.

“How is he?” Scotty asked in a whispered voice after a while. 

“Holding on,” Jim said. “Actually I was about to visit him when we dropped out of warp.” 

“Go to him, Jim. There is nothing you can help me with here at the moment. I’ll comm you the moment I find something.” 

Jim smiled at this friend. “Thanks, Scotty. Good luck.” 

“Ah, I don’t need luck, I’ve got my skills.” 

 

Jim didn’t know what he had expected when he came into medbay. It was quieter than usual and there was a chill in the air that he never noticed before. Uhura was still there, sitting at Spock’s bedside but Bones was nowhere to be seen. He started to look for him although he came here to see Spock but the quick glance over to Uhura and him was already enough for Jim. Seeing Spock like this was hard. He had never been good at this stuff, sitting beside a person who was sick or injured and just give support. Coming here was probably a mistake. It just proved to him that he shouldn’t get his hopes up, that Spock was nearer to death than he would like. 

So with a quick nod over to Uhura he went into Bones’ office in hope to find him there. And he was lucky. Bones was leaning over his desk, probably working on something. 

“Hey, Bones,” he said to get his attention.

Bones reacted immediately. “Jim!” He looked a little confused, probably wondering what Jim was doing down here although he had better stuff to do, more important stuff, like running a ship and finding out what the hell was going on. 

“I just wanted to see Spock,” he admitted. It was easy to talk with Bones about this stuff, always had been. Since the Academy they had been good friends and Jim had told him everything, he even started to open up about his past to this man and this was rare. He was his best friend. 

“He’s certainly not in here though,” Bones pointed out. Although the words sounded like a judgement, his voice was soft and gentle. 

“I know.” Jim took a few more steps into the little room and before he could say anything more he had his arms full of Bones. Bones rarely hugged, actually he never did. He tried to maintain his reputation of this grumpy and evil doctor who would bite you if you came too close. Jim didn’t question it though, just pressed himself closer to Bones because this was something he needed right now. Spock was dying and there was a threat to the ship he hadn’t figured out yet. He had no idea what he was supposed to do. 

“Don’t you dare tell anyone I did this,” Bones mumbled against Jim’s shoulder. 

Although Jim came down here to make himself feel a little better he didn’t come around to worry. Bones never did this, never just pushed himself against someone else in order to get some comfort. “You’re okay?” 

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Bones pulled away just as if he wanted to prove his point. “How are you?” 

Jim didn’t want to talk about himself and he knew this tone of voice pretty well. He had used it himself on so many different occasions. Bones wasn’t fine and it was easier to concentrate on that than to focus on his own problems. “Bones, talk to me.” 

Jim saw clearly how Bones was fighting with himself, if he should keep being stubborn or just go to hell with it and speak about the things that were troubling him. In the end he just turned around, leaned on the back of his chair, clinging almost desperately to it. “He died, okay? He died before I could even get him to medbay.” 

Carefully Jim walked a step closer to Bones again. “But you brought him back. He’s alive now.” 

“Yeah … but will he survive?” 

Jim bit on his bottom lip and blinked a few times to fight back the tears that were threatening to appear. He wanted to say that Spock would survive but seeing Bones like this, so uncertain himself, Jim was losing all hope. 

After a long silence Bones whispered, “Do you know what it feels like to hold the life of one of your closest friends in hand?” 

Jim had lost many people in the few years he had been Captain. A lot of people for whom he held responsibility. He had watched some of them die, had been close to them, but he had never watched a good friend die in front of him. Pike was the closest he could think of but he was dead already when Jim arrived there. Already gone. 

So Jim shook his head because he didn’t know, couldn’t possibly imagine what it would feel like, especially when everybody was counting on Bones to save Spock. 

“You did everything you could, Bones. He is alive now because of you.” 

“What if his heart stops again? What if I can’t bring him back next time?” 

Jim didn’t want to imagine this scenario, didn’t want to think about this at all. But he took a deep breath. For Bones. “Then you did everything you could. No one would blame you. You know that.” 

Bones turned around again, facing Jim. His eyes were shining with tears. “First Altamid, and now this. I’m not sure if I’m ready to lose him, Jim.”

“You won’t, okay? We won’t! Spock is the strongest man I’ve ever met. He will get through this.” 

Finally Bones nodded, slowly and steady. “Yeah … yeah, you’re right.” 

Jim smiled and squeezed Bones’ shoulder which made him look up, directly into Jim’s eyes. “And now to you? How are you holding up?” 

“I feel a little better,” Jim said truthfully. With helping Bones he found some of his self-confidence. He was the Captain, he could help not just Bones but all of his crew. “I just need to figure out what the hell is going on and then we can work on fixing that problem.”

“We fell out of warp?” 

“Yeah, apparently nothing is wrong. Scotty is searching for the problem right now.” The possibility of a virus he didn’t mention. He shouldn’t worry the crew before they were sure about this. Bones had enough on his plate right now. He should focus on Spock and nothing else. He was a doctor, not an engineer or security officer. This wasn’t his job. 

“And what about this Federation ship?”

“We followed it until we dropped out of warp. We’ll keep an eye on it but until we haven’t figured out why all this stuff is happening we can’t pursue it or even fight it. What if our weapons fail when we are in a battle? It’s too risky.” 

Bones furrowed his forehead, didn’t say anything at all, seemed deep in thought. Jim waited patiently. He could use an opinion, even if it came from Bones. He was good at calling Jim out on his bullshit as well. Maybe he had a good idea that Jim could work with. 

“Keptin!” Chekov interrupted them, rushing into the small office.

Confused Jim looked at him. “Chekov, what are you doing here?” 

“Sulu sent me. The communication is down and I was sent to get first Lieutenant Uhura and then you, sir. I wanted to head down to engineering when Uhura told me that you were in here.” 

Jim took a step over to Chekov. “Communication is down?” 

Chekov nodded. “Afraid so.”

Jim took him by his arm and shoved him out of the office and into medbay. Uhura was still in the room but already standing, waiting for her orders. But instead talking to them he turned around again to Bones. “You have portable communicators here, right?” Normally they were all stored in one room with the phasers and tricorders for away mission but Jim knew that Bones sometimes forgot to bring them back, so if they were lucky he had some here. Bones walked back into his office and returned with two of them. 

Jim immediately took one of it, flipped it open and entered the right frequency. “Test, test,” he said into the device and could hear a beeping sound coming from the one Bones was holding.

Bones opened it. “Can you hear me?” 

Bones’ voice was clearly audible through Jim’s communicator. So the problem with the ship’s communicators had to be because of the computer and not because someone was jamming the signal. 

“You keep yours,” Jim said and handed his own over to Chekov. “You and Uhura go back to the bridge and get this communicator up there. I will fetch a few others and get one down to engineering, in case Scotty doesn’t have one, and maybe one to Hendorff, so we can communicate with Security as well. Then I will come back to the bridge as well.” 

“Aye, sir,” Chekov said and followed Uhura out of medbay.

Jim glanced one last time over to Spock. “And you concentrate on Spock. If anything changes let us know.” 

“Wait, Jim.” Bones rushed forward and grabbed Jim’s arm. “Before Spock … well he woke up and he wanted to talk to you. Urgently. Maybe he noticed something before the accident happened. You should get through the data he was studying when you have this crisis under control.” 

Jim nodded. “Yeah, I will do that. Thanks for the tip.” 

“You should thank Spock if this is actually helpful.” 

“I’ll do this when he wakes up.” Jim squeezed Bones’ hand who was still holding on to him before prodding him to let go. 

The doors of medbay slid shut behind him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So today it's a really long chapter and full of Spones. I hope you guys enjoy :D

Doctor Connors just came back from a little break Leonard had send him on when everything went to hell. Alarms were blurring around them, but no yellow or red. Specific alarms that were constructed for medbay. Leonard had never had to use them before. It was a lock-down-protocol, in case some deadly virus got on the ship. It was for containment. 

“What the hell?” he shouted over the noise and rushed to the nearest computer. He looked up over the screen to Connors. 

The young doctor seemed to sense the unspoken question so he shook his head. “I didn’t touch anything.”  

“Didn’t think you had.” It was easy to start this protocol. After all every doctor or nurse should be able to activate it in a case of an emergency. Theoretically Connors would have been able to start it but it wouldn’t make sense. And it was not possible to do this on accident. 

Leonard knew that the ship was acting up and this was only the next step. 

“Computer, deactivate lockdown-protocol. Authorisation alpha-alpha-3-0-5, Chief Medical Officer Leonard McCoy.” 

“Request denied,” came the mechanic voice. 

“What?” The CMO could override any medical order, even the lock-down-protocol. He was one of the few who was cleared for that. 

“Lock-down-protocol can’t get lifted yet.” 

“You started it?” 

“Correct.” 

Frustrated Leonard ran his fingers through his hair. “On which reason?” 

“Contamination with virus B-254.” 

Somewhere in the back of Leonard’s head rang a bell but he couldn’t remember the memory he had with this virus. So he pressed a few buttons on the screen to unfold the necessary information. B-254 was a deadly virus from Vega II. There had been a tragic outbreak a few years ago with many dead souls. Unfortunately one Federation ship had transported the virus even to the next planet. After this the lock-down-protocol had been installed. 

“That’s insane. We didn’t come in contact with this virus.” 

“You are probably already infected.”

Did the computer try to sass him now? Somehow the system thought that this virus was on board. Leonard had no idea how he could fix this. 

Connors walked over to Leonard’s side. “Are we the only one who got locked in? How far is the range of this protocol?” 

“Normally just medbay to prevent the infection to spread.” 

Connors nodded. “Good. Just imagine the whole ship would be on lockdown. No one could move anymore.” 

Connors was right. No communication and no way of moving around. This would be bad. Without thinking Leonard grabbed the communicator from the desk. “Medbay to bridge.” 

“Len, it’s Nyota. We’re not back on the bridge yet. We are stuck in the turbolift.”

“Lockdown-protocol?” 

There was a short pause. “No, it just stopped. The computer said it was a mail function. Why are you asking this?”

“We were locked in because apparently we are all infected with a deadly virus which we aren’t. What is going on with this ship?” 

“I don’t know.”

Leonard laughed. “My grandma would say that this place is haunted. Maybe we have a ghost on board.”

“Please, don’t say something like that, Doctor McCoy,” Chekov’s shaky voice sounded over the communicator. 

“I’m sorry, kid. Let’s stay in touch, okay? I want to know what is going on over there.”

“Sure, Len. Hear you soon.” 

Uhura cut the transmission and it was completely silent suddenly. Leonard looked over to Spock and he was glad that the biobed was at least still working and he didn’t need to monitor his vitals in the old fashioned way. 

“What are we gonna do now, Doctor?” Connors asked.

Leonard shrugged. “I have not the faintest idea. I can’t hack into the computer, not exactly my expertise and if you didn’t have some extra lessons in engineering I doubt that you can either.”

“Sorry, no, sir.” 

“We will have to sit it out then. At least we are not in immediate danger.” 

 

At least the failing computer was merciful enough to silence the alarm after a few minutes. Being locked in was bad enough but this blaring alarms were unnerving. Leonard would have gone mad if it had kept going. Luckily for his own sake Connors kept very quiet as well. Leonard couldn’t deal with this quirky man in a closed space. He liked to have the possibility to walk out of the room in case he got the urge to kill this over enthusiastic kid. The imminent crisis though seemed to have calmed him down a little. He was more serious than Leonard had ever seen him. Once again he was proud to have this man on board with him. 

Due to the silence around them Leonard didn’t miss the change of noise from Spock’s biobed. The constant humming had already been part of the whole room, so it was hard to miss when it changed its frequency. 

Leonard jumped up at once and looked at the stats. Immediately he checked all of them to make sure the vitals hadn’t gone in the wrong direction - closer to death. Instead they showed that Spock was waking up. Leonard leaned closer down to him, grabbed the medical tricorder from his pocket and started scanning the Vulcan. 

It looked like before, not much had changed, only the fact that Spock seemed to regain consciousness. He was still extremely weak, no improvement there. But if Spock was awake, Leonard could talk to him and maybe Spock would be able to use the vulcan healing trance then to save his own life. 

Spock blinked a few times, looked at the ceiling, then to Leonard and then to the ceiling again. He needed a few seconds to realize where he was.

“Everything’s fine, Spock, take it easy.” 

The last time Spock had woken up, still bleeding and badly injured, he had tried to get back to Jim immediately. Leonard just wanted to prevent that Spock just jumped up again, and maybe hurt himself in the process. 

Spock blinked a few more times at Leonard before he opened his mouth, “I’m alive.” 

Leonard couldn’t fight the smirk that snuck up on him. “Yeah, obviously.” Right now was not the time to tell Spock that there still was a chance for him to die. Leonard wanted to give him at least a few more minutes, wait for Spock to be a little more clear headed. 

“I thought I was dying. I felt your distress.” 

Leonard furrowed his brows in confusion.

“You touched my hand when you were holding me. I was too weak to maintain my mental barriers.” 

Even after all those years Leonard still found it a little scary what Vulcans could all do, feeling the emotions of others just through touch. This was creepy as hell. Leonard just never realized that Spock could do this too. He never mentioned it to him. Although if he shielded himself to all those emotions he never read any of them, except maybe for Uhura. This back there had only seemed to be an accident. Spock was weak and didn’t have the strength to hold his shield up anymore. 

Still, Leonard didn’t like the thought that Spock had felt his emotions. Leonard put so much effort into keeping it all together in these kind of situations but he knew of course how it looked on the inside. Spock shouldn’t have seen this, shouldn’t have  _ felt _ that. 

“Yeah, well, you worried me there for a second.” Why should he maintain a false mask if Spock already knew? It wouldn’t make any sense. And he wasn’t embarrassed to admit that he cared about his friends. “You came pretty close.” 

As if this conversation was over Spock just nodded and sat up straight. “When will I be cleared for work?”

Leonard huffed. Jim and Spock were so similar when it came to ignoring how badly injured they were and just wanting to keep going. “Not in the next few minutes,” he said and when he noticed that Spock didn’t lay back again he added, “Or hours.” 

Reluctantly Spock laid back down. “I can’t remember everything.”

“It’s normal that it’s a bit blurry, don’t worry. It’ll come back to you.” 

Spock nodded but he didn’t look too convinced or he already was thinking about something else, not listening to Leonard anymore.

“Look, Spock, your injuries are pretty severe. You have lost a lot of blood and I couldn’t recreate all of your burned skin yet because you were too weak for that. I didn’t want to risk anything.”

“I’m still dying,” Spock said. “That is what you are trying to say, Doctor, isn’t it?” 

Leonard opened his mouth in awe but closed it again and just nodded. 

“I knew the moment I awakened. I can feel it.” 

“I wish I could do more, Spock, but maybe you can?” The hope that all this creepy stuff that Vulcans could do could save Spock’s life was not yet lost for Leonard. Especially not after Spock had told him he had felt Leonard’s emotions and that he could feel himself dying. He had a whole different understanding with his own body than humans had. 

Spock shook his head. “I can not.”

“You can’t or you don’t want to?” Leonard raised his voice, knowing full well that it was more desperation that played into it than actual anger. 

“My body … my spirit would have reacted instinctively. The healing trance comes natural. Something is holding me back.” 

“Holding you back? What is it?” 

Spock seemed lost. “I do not know.” 

Leonard wouldn’t give up that easily. If there was still a chance to save Spock’s life he had to try everything, and even if he had to counsel a Vulcan now, get to his deepest burdens. “What could it possibly be?” 

“There are many reasons. The most logical one is that my mind is torn.” 

“Torn? Torn between what? What could be more important than saving your own life?” 

Spock got quiet again and Leonard feared that he had gone too far. He didn’t understand much of Vulcan culture. But he surely didn’t intend to offend Spock. “Sorry, Spock, I didn’t mean to … I’m just-” Leonard was worried. He had seen Spock close to death in the last months too often. He wasn’t ready for this, would probably never be, but not today. Spock wouldn’t die today. He promised himself. And Jim. And Uhura.

Spock had to live and if that meant that Leonard would prop a little harder than he would normally do.

“It’s okay, Leonard, I understand.” 

And for a change Leonard believed him, believed that he understood what complicated feelings Leonard had inside of him because Spock had felt them for a short time. So Leonard took a deep breath and forced himself to get a little calmer. “So, what could be more important?” he repeated his question with a gentle voice.

“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” It sounded almost like a mantra. Leonard had heard it before. It was one of those phrases Spock used more often. Maybe it was an old Vulcan wisdom or something like that. 

Still, it made not much sense. “So you wanted to save us? What can you possibly do what no other can?”

“I do not know.” Spock seemed distressed that he couldn’t figure out what was holding him back. Leonard needed to help him somehow.

“Okay, okay, what do we know? You didn’t perform the Vulcan healing trance because you wanted to help us. But you could do this as well after you are healed, couldn’t you?”

Spock shook his head. “With such severe injuries the procedure would take a long time.” 

“So it’s about time. You were afraid that your help would be too late if you healed yourself.” In this moment Leonard remembered how Spock acted the first time he awakened in the turbolift. “When you woke up earlier you wanted to talk to Jim. It seemed urgent. Can you remember what you wanted to tell him? Maybe that’s the solution to this problem.” If this was really the reason why Spock’s spirit refused to use the trance then they just needed to figure out the information Spock got and Leonard could give them to Jim - if he had a communicator by now. 

Spock stared at the ceiling, obviously deep in thoughts. “The events just before I got injured are still very out of focus.”

“It will come back to you.” Leonard didn’t want to haste Spock - although time was of the essence. But he would just strain himself if he tried to force this information out of his mind. 

“This should not be. Vulcans are always in control of their minds, of their emotions and memories. It should be clear to me.” 

“You are hurt, Spock, Vulcan or not. Even a full Vulcan would have difficulties right now. Just rest a little and we can talk later.” 

Spock didn’t seem happy about this but nodded anyway. “One more thing, Doctor.”

“What is it, Spock?” 

“Is Nyota uninjured?” 

Leonard smiled softly at him. “She is fine. She sat with you until she was ordered back to the bridge half an hour ago.”

This information seemed to calm Spock down. He nodded once again and closed his eyes. 

Leonard could see clearly how aggravating it was for Spock not knowing the answer to the question, how much it troubled him that he couldn’t remember clearly. They both knew now that these information were of utter importance and Spock felt the pressure to remember. Leonard wanted him to but he didn’t want to risk Spock’s health for that. Pushing him would bring them nowhere.

Leonard didn’t tell Spock anything of what was going on deliberately. The pressure would only increase then, to know that  _ something _ was going on. Although until now they were just inconveniences. Nothing drastic had happened yet. No one was injured except for Spock. Maybe he thought they were in more trouble than they actually were. At least Leonard hoped so. 

If there was an actual dangerous situation threatening them they couldn’t do much without communication. Many might get injured and Leonard had no way of getting out of this room to help the crew. 

Leonard really hoped it was only a glitch in the system and that Scotty would find and fix it. 

 

While Spock was resting Leonard had returned to his desk and started to work on some reports. He had to do something to not get crazy. Unfortunately, except the newest report for Spock everything was finished. He had nothing to do than sitting around uselessly.

“Doctor McCoy, maybe you should rest a little,” Doctor Connors’ voice sounded through the room. “I can watch over Spock for a while.”

“I’m fine, Connors.” Actually Leonard was pretty damn tired but he couldn’t just have a break now. Not now. Not in this situation. They needed all personnel and Leonard was the damn CMO. He was responsible for the health of every single crew member. Even if he couldn’t leave medbay at the moment, he had to stay awake.

“You are on your feet the whole day. You had a full shift and then the attack happened. You are way longer on duty than usually.”

“Doctors are used to work over hours. You are too, kid, don’t fool me there.” 

“Yes, but right now there is nothing to do. We are locked in. We  _ can’t  _ do anything. Instead of just sitting around uselessly you could take a little nap in your office.”

Leonard hated this logic. He had no actual argument against that. Right now Leonard really couldn’t do anything at all except of watching Spock sleep and Leonard could think of a thousand other things that would be more exciting to do. 

“Doctor Connors is right.” 

Leonard shot an angry look over to Spock. “You should be sleeping as well!” 

“You only said that I should rest, Doctor McCoy. There are different kinds of resting for a Vulcan.” 

Leonard rolled his eyes. Sometimes he really hated Spock, okay, most of the times. He always had to pick a fight, at least it felt like it for Leonard. He hit a nerve by only opening his mouth. “So what kind of resting were you performing then?”

“I simply meditated in hope that I could order my confused thoughts.”

Leonard raised an eyebrow. “Did it work?”

Spock moved his head to the side as if he wanted to dodge Leonard’s look. “Not yet. But I think I am getting closer. I remember clearly the moment we came across the USS Ikarus.”

“Maybe the data from the battle can jumpstart your memory?” Connors suggested and Leonard just looked at him, with his mouth half open. He really had to be tired. Only half an hour ago he had told Jim to look at the data, that it might tell them something and now he had completely forgotten about that?

He fetched his PADD and walked back over to Spock, shoving it into his hands. 

As expected Spock didn’t waste any time and looked for the specific data just for Spock handing him back the PADD. “It is not there. It must have been damaged in the explosion.” 

“Possible,” Leonard said but exchanged a knowing look with Connors. After every crazy thing that had happened over the past few hours Leonard doubted that it was just bad luck.

“So back to meditating then?”

Connors also walked up to Spock’s bed and ran his tricorder over Spock, frowning in concern. Leonard was immediately alarmed. “What is it?” 

“I was just worried that the meditation could be too exhausting for Mr. Spock at the moment but it seems fine so far.” 

“You didn’t look like it’s fine,” Leonard said and positioned himself behind Connors to get a look on the readings. 

“It is a calculated risk, Doctor. I know how much I can strain my body.”

Leonard doubted that. He had a very low self preservation, just like Jim. He just had this crazy idea in his head that he had to save them all and wanted to find this information, no matter the cost. Although Leonard could understand the wish, as a doctor he couldn’t let Spock torture himself. “I said resting and with resting I mean something that doesn’t hurt you.”

“It does not hurt me, Doctor. And it is our only chance to get the needed information.” 

Leonard still didn’t like it, so he said something he didn’t actually consider what it could mean. “Can I help you in some way?”

“You mean a mind meld?” 

“A mind-” Leonard stuttered, not sure if he should like this thought or not. He could barely tolerate Spock when they talked eye to eye. He doubted that it would be easier when he was walking around in his head. But he still wanted to make this easier for Spock, in any way possible. “Would this actually help you?” 

“It could be. Right now I have difficulties to order my thoughts. Maybe a second opinion could help to untie them.” 

Leonard didn’t trust Spock completely right now when it came to considering his own health, so he turned to Connors. “Is it safe?” 

Connors took some time to answer. “A mind meld can be straining but if Commander Spock thinks that he can perform it, maybe you should try it. If the information that Spock has is really so important I believe we have to take some risks.”

“It won’t kill him?” Leonard whispered now.

“No, not kill him directly, maybe weaken him a little more. If he doesn’t use the healing trance after that the chances that he might die will probably increase.”

“There is a 34% possibility of increasing,” Spock clarified - so he had heard all of it. “I believe it is a risk we have to take if we want to save the Enterprise.”

Leonard didn’t like the sound of that. “We still don’t know with certainty if your information is that crucial.” 

“I believe it is, Doctor. And I think you have to trust my judgement.” Spock looked directly at him. “Do you trust me?”

For a while Leonard didn’t say anything, just staring back at Leonard. In the end he sighed loudly. “I’m sure I will regret this.” 

As if Connors had known that Leonard would give in in the end he came from behind and brought him a chair so he could sit down right next to Spock’s bed. Spock moved into a sitting position as well.

“So, what do I have to do?” Leonard asked. It was bad enough that Spock had seen a glimpse of Leonard’s feelings earlier. Now he was walking around Spock’s mind. This would probably be so much fun. 

“Just clear your mind and be open.” 

“Was never good in that,” he mumbled when Spock laid his hands on Leonard’s face. This was oddly intimate and with every passing second Leonard doubted that he made the right decision. Who would be mad enough to share thoughts? Maybe the short time of being locked up had already driven him mad. This was the only explanation that he was sitting here and performing a mind meld with Spock.

“My mind to your mind. My thoughts to your thoughts,” Spock said and closed his eyes. Leonard did the same, a little afraid that he would literally watch himself travel into Spock’s mind, that he would see a vortex that would suck him in. 

He kept his eyes closed until he heard Spock’s voice. “You can open your eyes now, Doctor.” 

First he blinked cautiously one eye open and when he noticed that they were on the bridge, he fully opened them. He looked around. It looked exactly like the bridge, with every little detail. “So this is your mind?”

“This is merely a memory.” 

“The memory of the attack?”

“Precisely.” 

Leonard walked around. It was weird that the crew were all talking and doing the things they always did, just without noticing him. Jim was staring at the screen, completely concentrated on the problem at hand. “It looks pretty clear to me.” He turned around to Spock.

“For now. This is before we have visual on the USS Ikarus.”

Leonard walked over to Spock who was standing at his station and studying some readings as if this whole scenario was happening right now, and not hours ago. “When does it start to get blurry?” 

“Right after the USS Ikarus fires at us.” 

Leonard nodded. “So shortly before you get injured. It’s normal that some people can’t remember the actual accident. But the information are still in the head, they are still there. So maybe if I will look at it, it’ll be clear for me.”

“That is why I brought you here.” 

Leonard remained quiet and waited for the inevitable. The phaser fire shook the whole ship, nothing that Leonard hadn’t felt before but actually he had thought that it wouldn’t be this  _ real _ in Spock’s mind. This was frightening. If this felt like a real attack he didn’t want to picture what it must feel like when the console in front of them exploded.

“Can you see anything, Doctor?” 

Leonard nodded. “I can see everything, but hell, I’m no scientist. I don’t think I’m much of a help here. If there is something on your screen then only you can interpret it.” Right in this moment the science station exploded into a bright flashing light and Leonard startled awake.

Spock lowered his arms, looking more than disappointed.

“I’m sorry, Spock, I wish I could have done more.”

“We should try again.” 

Leonard stopped Spock in his motion when he tried to put his hand back on Leonard’s face. “Do you think this will be wise?” He was worried about Spock. This procedure strained him, Leonard could see it clearly, and he wasn’t so sure if he was much of a help. As he said before he was no scientist. He couldn’t see anything in this whole mess of numbers. And if they couldn’t find a way that Spock could see it too, they would never get to those informations. 

“It is our only chance, Leonard.” 

Leonard hated when Spock called him by his first name. It always reminded him that Spock wasn’t this cold hearted creature that you might think he was when you first met him. He cared deeply. Hell, he was dying because he couldn’t get rid of the thought that he had some important information that were crucial for the survival of the whole crew. And he would do anything to get to them, live through this moment over and over again, until he had found these informations. 

So finally Leonard nodded. “Okay, let’s try again.” 

Once again Leonard closed his eyes to the soothing sound of Spock’s voice, “My mind to your mind. My thoughts to your thoughts.”

When he opened them a little later he stood on the bridge again. This time he concentrated directly on the science station, to get a feeling what the different numbers and fluctuations meant. Not that he understood any of it but he noticed a change after the phaser hit the Enterprise. The numbers went crazy. They were moving around as if they couldn’t decide on which number they wanted to stop and then they just did and it seemed like everything was the way it was before. 

“There was definitely something, Spock,” he said before the bright white light forced them out of the memory. 

“What was it?” Spock wanted to know right away after they were back in medbay. 

“I don’t know. The numbers went all crazy and then it was all like before. I can’t tell you exactly what it was.” That sounded totally not helpful. Leonard didn’t point out for nothing on so many occasions that he was only a doctor. He was a damn fine doctor, smart and clever, but not the brightest when it came to other stuff. He just loved his work and other people could do what they could do best. Leonard would stick to his medicine and never become a scientist or anything else. “Didn’t help at all, right?” 

Spock was too quiet for Leonard’s taste. He should have said something already. He still stared on the blanket that lay on top of his legs. 

“Spock?” Leonard had to fight the urge to get his tricorder and scan his friend again. It wouldn’t do anything at all. There was nothing that Leonard didn’t already know and if his condition had worsened Leonard would just blame himself for being so stupid to get along with this although all his doctor instincts had told him not to do it, not to risk the life of one of his patients. 

Suddenly Spock looked up, right at Leonard. “One more time?” 

Leonard wanted to back away but there was something in Spock’s eyes that he didn’t dare to say no. So he just nodded and the whole process started from new. 

 

“There,” Leonard said and pointed at the science station when the numbers started to acting weird again.

Spock stepped closer. “How could I forget?”

“You can see it?” Leonard asked surprised. 

Instead of answering Spock just nodded and remained silent.

Of course, why would he explain it? “So, what does it mean? How screwed are we?” 

“The phaser was not fired with the intention to damage our ship. They transported something on board.”

Leonard frowned in confusion. “What?” 

“I am not sure what it is. In the first moment I thought it might be a virus but now I think it could be a living creature.” 

“A living creature? Why has no one seen it yet? And how exactly did it come on board? You’re not making much sense right now.” Quietly Leonard wondered if Spock was so weak that he had started hallucinating. This sounded way too abstruse. 

“It is in the computer system. That is why I originally thought that it was a virus.” 

Okay, so far Leonard could follow. After everything that had happened a virus sounded very logical. Not that he would tell Spock that. He always avoided to use this word in his near vicinity. Either Spock would scold him for using this word for something that wasn’t logical at all, which would be typical for an emotional human being or he would be proud of him and Leonard didn’t know what thought scared him more. 

So he stepped away from this word and instead asked another question. “So what made you think that it’s not just a virus but something living?”

“Because it’s intelligent. It noticed me. It realized I had seen it and it acted on it.”

Leonard’s eyes widened. “You want to say, it blew up your science station?” 

“That is a logical assumption.”

Leonard remembered that Uhura had told him that it was some kind of overload that Scotty had no explanation for. This would explain it. As crazy as it might sound. 

“Let’s get out of here. We have to tell Jim.” 

In the next second they were back in medbay once more. Spock leaned back on the wall behind him and closed his eyes for a second. Immediately Leonard was worried again but this could wait another minute. As soon as he had told Jim the news Spock should be ready to perform the Vulcan healing trance. And he should be as good as new after that. 

Connors seemed to have sensed that their mission had been successful because he was already standing ready right next to Leonard and held the communicator out to him.

“McCoy to Kirk,” he said after he changed the frequency to the one that Jim always used. Only silence followed. “Jim can you hear me?” 

Leonard waited a few more seconds before speaking again, “Come on, Jim. This is important.” 

Spock looked at him, a clear unspoken question right on his face. Leonard ignored it for the moment and tried the old frequency. “Anyone there?” 

“Stil Uhura,” Nyota answered. “Still in the turbolift. How is the situation over there?” 

“Will explain it later. Have you spoken to anyone else but me?”

“Negative. I don’t think that Jim ever got to any of the communicators. He would have gotten in touch with us.” 

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Leonard didn’t like this. This alien lifeform had them all seperated and they had no way of letting Jim know what was going on with his ship. And if he considered that the alien was willing to kill Spock to keep its secret he didn’t want to imagine what it would do to the next person who came near its secret. Jim was clever, sooner or later he would find out about it. Maybe he had even listened to Leonard’s advice and had looked at Spock’s latest data before it had vanished. If so Jim would get to the same conclusions as Spock and he would most likely pay for it. “Damn it,” he swore out loud.

“Leonard, what is going on?” Spock seemed concerned and if a Vulcan showed emotions it was never good. It was probably just a reaction to Leonard’s little outburst but Leonard was worried about Jim. If he never gotten to the storage room something might have happened to him. Looking at Spock, Leonard didn’t want to imagine what. 

“Well, I haven’t told you before because I didn’t want to upset you. We have lost ship’s communication and we are kind of locked in medbay.” 

“So there is no way of informing the Captain?”

Leonard shook his head. “He is on his own for now.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the awesome comments to my last chapter. You guys are amazing <3

Uhura sat on the ground of the turbolift, leaning against the wall. Chekov was still concentrated on the little computer terminal, trying to figure out what had happened. They were stuck in here for hours - at least it felt like it. It was probably only one or not even that. Uhura had lost her feeling of time, especially because Chekov seemed to talk even more when he was nervous. Since Leonard had mentioned that the ship was haunted, the young ensign was a little agitated. And he talked to distract himself - even next to working his way around the computer system.

“Did you know that the original elevator was invented in Russia?” 

Uhura smiled amused. “Really?” 

Chekov nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah. It was invented by a young man who was too lazy to walk the stairs. After sitting night after night at the end of the stairs he finally had the idea of a moving room that can bring you up and down.” 

“How about getting this room moving again?” Uhura stood up and positioned herself right behind Chekov and looked him over the shoulder. “Found the error yet?” 

“No, everything seems okay. If you look at this,” he pointed at some data on the screen, “the turbolift should be moving.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t.” Uhura knew that Chekov was smart, extremely smart, and if there wasn’t anything to be found than it had to be well hidden. Apparently there was a problem. They weren’t moving after all. 

“I’ll try to dig a little deeper,” Chekov murmured and was already full at work. 

Right in this moment Leonard called over the communicator. “Anyone there?” 

“Stil Uhura,” Uhura answered. “Still in the turbolift. How is the situation over there?” 

“Will explain it later. Have you spoken to anyone else but me?”

“Negative. I don’t think that Jim ever got to any of the communicators. He would have gotten in touch with us.” She didn’t want to confess it but she was a little worried that they hadn’t heard from anyone. At least Jim should have called by now.

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

 

After that it was quiet again. Normally Uhura had patience but this whole situation made her nervous. It felt like someone wanted to split them all up so they couldn’t work together.

“Leonard, did you find something out?” she asked after a while.

“Spock and I did, yes.” 

Uhura closed her eyes for a short moment, let the relief wash over her. That Spock was awake didn’t mean he was out of danger but at least they could talk to him, tell him what was necessary so that he could survive. “So what’s the situation?” 

“When the USS Ikarus fired at us some alien life form got on board and snuck into the computer system.” 

Uhura exchanged a look with Chekov. The young ensign looked alarmed and that was enough to worry Uhura as well. “So it’s controlling our whole system? Is it that what you are trying to say?” 

“Yes, it’s controlling our system and it is very smart. It can hide very well apparently, unless we already would have detected it. And it probably attacked Spock too, after it realized that Spock had seen it.” 

“Okay, that sounds like trouble.”  A lot more than only trouble. If no one else had found out on their own, Chekov, Leonard, Spock, Connors and Uhura were the only one who knew what was going on and they were all stuck right now. So they somehow needed to break free. “Chekov and I will try to get out of the turbolift and find the Captain.”

There was a short pause before Spock’s voice sounded over the communicator. Immediately a warm smile spread on Uhura’s lips. It was good to hear his voice. “You have to be careful, Nyota. I believe that it is monitoring us over the ship’s security system. It probably has heard and seen everything about our conversation.”

“So it could just kill us?” These were very bad news.

“Precisely.” 

“We will be careful then,” she said as positively as possible. “Don’t worry about us.” 

Once again there was a little pause before the answer came, “Keep in contact.”

Uhura smiled fondly. She had become quite good at reading Spock, even if she only could hear his voice. He was worried about her and it spread a warm feeling inside of her. Of course she knew that she should be more worried about their current situation but right now she was just happy that Spock was awake and that he cared about her. 

“We will,” she promised and ended the conversation with that. She stepped next to Chekov again. “So any idea how we can get out of here?” 

“I can’t trick the computer if this thing is controlling it, not until I have access to a bigger terminal. From here I can’t get to the whole system, so maybe we climb?” He pointed upwards to the hatch. Tubes were running throughout the entire ship. They should get everywhere.

Uhura smiled excitedly. “Let’s climb then.”

 

Jim had argued with the computer more times in the last half hour than in the entire three years he was on board this ship. Normally the computer just obliged to its orders and Jim was satisfied. Not today. Today it wanted to fight apparently. 

Every order that Jim gave was “not possible to oblige”. 

First when he arrived at the storage room he couldn’t get inside. The door was locked. He tried to enter the normal code. It didn’t work. Then he tried to use the Captain’s override. Another failure. Jim had spend a whole ten minutes in front of this door, trying to get inside. He couldn’t get in and the computer didn’t want to open it. 

So Jim gave up in the end and made his way back to engineering. 

It was very obvious now that something was controlling their computer and Jim just hoped that Scotty had found the virus by now and knew how to get rid of it. Two decks down Jim was stopped in his tracks by a hail over the ship’s communicator.

“Captain!”

Jim stopped right away. “Spock?” he asked out loud before turning around and looking for the nearest talking device. When he found it he rushed to it. Once again he asked the same question, now pressing the button. “Spock?” 

There was no answer for several minutes. Jim tried to hail his friend more than once but there was no reaction. He was so far believing that he had just imagined his voice, when the next message came. “We need to talk!”

This time it was his own voice though. Jim frowned, suspicion in his eyes. “Who are you?” he asked aloud, not bothering to use the communicator anymore. A feeling told him the thing that was trying to talk to him could hear him nevertheless. 

“I have - control - over your ship.” Every few words the voice changed, making it hard to follow the actual sentence. 

“Who are you?” Jim repeated his question. He had to know with whom he was dealing. 

“Would not - understand.” 

Jim huffed. “Try me. I’m actually quite clever.” He smirked cockily. If whoever this was could talk to him, maybe he could see him as well. Jim didn’t want to look worried or scared. So he played it cool. 

“You do not - know - my species - yet.”

Jim took some time to answer, weighing what would be the best approach for this First Contact situation. “Then tell me about you. But first I will tell you something about me. My name is James Tiberius Kirk. I’m the Captain of this ship, the USS Enterprise. We belong to an organisation that calls itself Starfleet. It’s part of the United Federation of Planets.” 

“I know. I know everything - about you.” 

This was no wonder. If it had access to the computer system he had access to all the files and they had information about every single crew member who was on board. Also the whole data bank was full of the history of the Federation. “So then it’s only fair, you tell me something about yourself, don’t you think?” 

“This does not - matter. I am in - control.” 

This was pretty clear but Jim needed it to keep talking. Maybe he could find a weak spot somehow. “Then tell me what you want? Maybe we can negotiate like civilized beings. You don’t need to take control of this ship. We don’t want to cause you any harm. If we can help you with something we are happy to do anything in our powers.”

“No negotiations. I say - what - you do.” 

Although it sounded pretty emotionless using all those different voices from records from the data bank it was very clear to Jim that this was meant as a threat. And knowing that this alien had the control over the entire ship Jim couldn’t do much right now, not with standing in the middle of the hall with no access to a computer and being under close surveillance. 

“Okay.” Jim raised his arms in surrender. “What do you want me to do?” 

“This is - my ship - now. You go.” 

Jim laughed shortly. “And where do you think we should go?” 

“Planet.” 

Now Jim got angry. He wouldn’t surrender his ship to an alien he hadn’t even seen yet. This ship was his home and the entire crew was his family. He wouldn’t just give this up without a fight. “You listen to me. I don’t know who you are or what you want with my ship but I won’t just leave to give it to you. I’m the Captain of this ship. Not you!” 

“I can - force - you. I can - hurt - you. Like I did with - Commander Spock.” 

Jim bit himself on the lip in order to prevent himself of saying something he would regret later. His hands were folded into fists. It helped him to stay grounded, to remind himself to stay calm and composed. He was the Captain of this ship and even if Spock was a close friend he couldn’t lose his cool. “So this was you?” He asked instead, voice steady but deeper than usual. Someone who knew Jim would see that he was clearly pissed.

“It was necessary.” 

Jim wanted to ask why when he realized the reason. He laughed pretentiously. “He saw you, didn’t he? So you are not as good as you thought you were, right?”

“Doesn’t matter. I am in - control - now. No one - can stop - me.”

Jim shook his head. “You may have read all the files of my crew members but you don’t  _ know _ them. They are so much more than the words that describe them. They are smart and inventive and none of them will give up that easily. You may hide but we will find and stop you.” 

“You can’t.”

“We will see what we can or can’t do. You have chosen the wrong ship to take over.”

“I have chosen - nothing. But you will - choose. Leave - or - die.”

Jim would rather leave this ship behind than be responsible for the death of his entire crew. But right now was not the time to decide that. Right now he could still fight. They were in the middle of nowhere. There was no way of leaving this ship. Until then Jim had the time to find a way to beat this alien. 

“You won’t - find - me,” the alien said as if he knew what Jim had thought right in this moment. “You have - two hours.” 

Jim showed a crooked smile. “This feels like a challenge. You give me free passage?” Jim knew that the alien could lock him out of any room if it wanted to. It could block him from getting to any of his friends and alone Jim would have no chance against this alien, he knew that. He was not as good with the computer system as Scotty or Chekov or Spock would be. But Jim could do other stuff better than they could. He could gamble and win. He could trick his opponent. And this was one of those opportunities.

“I do not.” 

“So you just want to wait two hours until we arrive at whatever planet you chose for us and get bored? Let us play a game.” 

For a few moments it was completely quiet until the alien spoke again, “Tell me more.” 

“You give me free passage if I demand it. If you are so convinced that you are well hidden I can’t do anything against you, right? So why not give me the chance to find you? All the others you can have locked in, just give me free passage to roam the ship and get me where I need to go, nothing else. You can play your tricks with the computer. All I ask for are open doors.” 

“Very well. Open - doors.” It was hard to tell if the alien was excited or not because it didn’t use its own voice - if it even had one. “You have access - to the - entire - ship. But not - medbay - or - turbolift.”

It wanted to tire Jim down as it seemed but Jim would take what he could. So he smiled. “Deal.” It still bothered him that he couldn’t get into medbay but discussing this now could upset the alien and maybe he would take away the free passage ticket all together. Jim just needed to live with that. “It was nice talking to you,” Jim said and started running again. His first stop would still be engineering.

 

Loud classic rock music was sounding through engineering. Since Scotty had met Jaylah on Altamid he sometimes listened to music while he was working. It was mostly in situations where he faced a complicated problem. This way he could imagine that Jaylah was with him, giving him useful hints to the solution. 

Finding this virus seemed to be a lot harder than first anticipated so Scotty had turned the music on. Keenser was no big help either, sitting on something and swaying with the tact of the music. 

“Get down!” Scotty yelled for the third time now. Keenser just looked at him angrily and jumped down from wherever he was sitting now. “Do you found anything yet? Anything that could explain why my ship is acting weird?”

Despite the fact that Keenser was small and just way too often just sitting somewhere, this little man was very very clever. But he was just shaking his head. No big help. Who was surprised? Definitely not Scotty. 

“Then go back and find me-” Scotty was interrupted when Jim rushed into engineering as if his life depended on it.

“Scotty, you’re okay,” he whispered, completely out of breath and leaning on his knees to get some air back into his lungs. 

Scotty just raised an eyebrow and was watching his Captain. “Yeah, I am. Are you?” After all, Jim was the one who was acting a little strange right now, barging in here as if the world was ending. Okay, okay, they had had a few little problems but the ship was still flying, so no need to rush it. 

Jim looked at him confused. “Didn’t you notice that you were locked in in engineering and that we lost ship’s communication?”

Scotty let out a little laugh. “Jim, I almost sleep every second night here. As if I would notice that I am locked in for 10 minutes.”

“It is almost an hour now.”

“Oh!” Scotty turned back to the computer console and was checking the time. “You’re right.” 

Jim rolled his eyes. “Tell me, you’ve got something. It’s been an hour.”

“Yeah, well,” Scotty said, stretching the words. He hated to disappoint his Captain. He got into the habit of stretching out a deadline first, so he could shine when he said he could do it quicker than that. Okay, he did that mostly for his own glory but part of it also to see this amazing happy smile on Jim’s face. 

“So, yeah, Jim, if this is really a virus it’s a virus I’ve never seen before due to the fact I haven’t found it yet.”

“It’s not a virus,” Jim said. “It’s an alien lifeform. Something that took over the computer system.”

“So you’re saying we have an intruder on the ship?” Scotty was whispering now, although he didn’t know why. The intruder was obviously not in this room, unless Keenser would have noticed it by now. Scotty had been so deep into his work he could have made the mistake of missing someone sneaking into engineering. 

Jim nodded. “I’m afraid so. So we need to find him now. Where could he be?” 

“He can get access to the computer everywhere on the ship but not to the extent he did. Either he has every security code or he has to sit at the source which would be right here.” He pointed at the console he had been working on the entire time. “You can control the whole ship from here and even block everyone else out with a little knowledge. But I am standing here the whole time, so I would have noticed if someone would have been here.”

“So you’re saying he has all the codes and can do this from another position?”

“Where would he have gotten all the codes?” This was almost impossible. Not even Scott himself had all the codes. He could get them if he really tried to but not with some digging and surely not from some little terminal in a random crew’s quarter. “Do we know which species it is?”

“It told me that we haven’t encountered them yet. So it is new.” 

“New can mean anything.” Scotty laughed at the random thought he just had. “New means he could be  _ in _ the computer.” He shook his head right after. “This would be ridiculous.” 

Jim got a little closer. “Would it?” 

“You can’t believe that he is  _ in  _ the computer, Jim, can you?” 

“You just explained to me that it either would need all the codes or run its operation from here. The second one is impossible and the first one is very unlikely. So would it be so farfetched to claim that it is in the computer?”

Scotty swayed his head from left to right. “Well, no, not exactly.” 

“It’s not the first time we see a creature without an actual body. Maybe this alien belongs to these kind of species.” 

“We only have one wee problem then, sir.”

“Which one?”

“If it is really in the computer system it’s very similar to a virus and I wasn’t able to find it yet, I’m not sure I can at all.”

Suddenly Jim hit him encouragingly on the back. “You are the best engineer on this ship, Scotty. You know this ship like no one else does. I’m sure you can find one intruding alien.”

“Ah,” Scotty wanted to object because this time he really wasn’t sure if he could work this miracle. This alien was very smart if it kept hidden this entire time, if it could alter the computer readings to let it look like everything was working well - except it wasn’t. It had to alter the complete program to do that. Scotty had been looking for hints of a virus, not for some new subprograms. If he could find those, he could be closer to this alien. “Okay, yeah, possibly.”

“This is the spirit, Scotty.” Jim was grinning now and this was all that mattered. He pushed him in front of the console. “You should start right away. And in case we are wrong and this alien is somewhere on the ship, I’ll keep going, trying to find it.” 

Scotty didn’t like the sound of that. If this alien could actually control every single thing on this ship, walking around was a bigger risk than staying on one spot. “Will you come very far? You said I was locked in. Won’t the other’s be locked in either?”

“I had a little chat with the alien. I’m his one exception. I can go wherever I please - I’m just not allowed to use the turbolift or go into medbay. I need to take advantage of that.”

Scotty looked at him incredulously. “You talked with this thing?”

“It told me that it was in control and that we should leave this ship as soon as we are near a suitable planet.”

“What? It expects us to leave? We just got this beauty back. I’m not leaving, Captain!”

Jim smiled fondly at him. “I won’t either. At least not without a fight. So let’s find this alien and stop it, yeah?”

“You got it, sir. I’m already on it.” 

 

“Uhura,” Chekov’s voice sounded from behind her.

She didn’t turn around, not just because it wasn’t possible but also because she didn’t want to encourage Chekov to tell another of his ridiculous stories. “What? Were hamster tunnels also invented in Russia?”

Chekov chuckled. “Possible but I wanted to say that we need to turn right at the next corner.”

Uhura looked around and looked at the number of the tube they were just in. “Oh, yes, right, thanks.” Of course they had learned all of this in the Academy, they even had training sessions on a ship with crawling through these tunnels but since then Uhura had never had to use it. She was not part of engineering who were more often in these tunnels and there hadn’t been an emergency that she had to hide. So this was the first time she was in these things since a very long time and it wasn’t so easy not to get lost - although the tunnels were all labeled. Luckily Chekov was with her. He could memorise every little detail of a ship and not forget it ever. 

So at the next corner Uhura turned right. They were already at the right deck, so they only needed to get out at the right place. After talking about it they decided to exit the tunnels as closely to the storage room as possible because the tunnels had no cameras. They could hide in here and talk about everything without the intruder noticing. 

When they arrived at the right hatch, Uhura waited for a second. “Maybe I should go out there alone.” She turned a little around to be able to look at Chekov.

The young ensign looked worried. “Why?” 

“Because the Captain might not be there.” And the alien awaited them. It knew that they wanted to reach this room and although it could probably not do much when they stood in the hallway, Uhura didn’t want to take any chances. If Chekov stayed behind they had at least one person that knew everything that was going on and could move freely - more or less - on the ship, if anything should happen. “And then we need to keep looking for him.” 

“We can both keep looking after we checked the hallway and the storage room.” 

Uhura paused shortly. “I just don’t want the both of us getting caught if something should happen. Spock told us to be careful because this alien might heard everything we had planned. It knows that we wanted to come here. I’m just being careful.” 

Chekov looked at Uhura for a long while until he finally nodded. “Okay, I’ll wait.”

“If I’m not back in 5 minutes you keep moving, okay?” 

Chekov mumbled something in Russian that Uhura didn’t understand because it was too quiet but she could see clearly that he wasn’t too thrilled about this order. And it hadn’t even been an order yet. If Chekov had refused another time, Uhura would have made it a proper order which he couldn’t have just disagreed with. An order was an order, and Uhura was the higher ranking officer right now. 

“I’ll be back as quickly as possible. And hopefully with the Captain.” 

“Good luck,” Chekov murmured before she opened the hatch and crawled out onto the hallway. Chekov closed the hatch right behind her, after she gave him the communicator. Standing there she felt utterly alone for a short second. 

She looked left and right to make sure that she was alone, made sure that she was on the right spot and then turned left to get to the place where Jim had wanted to go. The storage room was only a few steps away so Uhura already knew that Jim wasn’t there, at least not in front of it. She would have seen him already. 

So she tried to open the door with no big success which didn’t surprise her much. She had already expected such a thing. Nevertheless she tried to use Spock’s code to override the lockout. This didn’t work either. She just wanted to return to Chekov when the door slid open almost magically. She furrowed her brows in suspicion.

“I’m here,” Jim’s voice sounded out of the dark room. “Help me.” 

Uhura couldn’t see a thing. For all she knew Jim could actually be in there but she wasn’t stupid. If Jim was actually in there, he would have used one of the communicators or the phasers to get himself out of there. Yet again, the door was open and they really needed the stuff that was in there. 

“I’m not that stupid to fall for this trick,” she said out loud in hope the alien could hear her. She wouldn’t step in those trap, not even for the needed communicators and phasers. If the alien took the time to trick her, it wouldn’t just let her go. The moment she had walked in the doors would be closing again and there was no way into a Jefferies tube. No way out. So keeping cautious was more important than some firepower and communication that they might never get to anyone anyway. 

As an answer the door in front of her closed again.

Uhura grinned triumphantly. If she had gone inside she would have been trapped again. 

So she turned around and returned to Chekov.

“Have you found the Captain?” he asked excitedly.

Uhura shook her head sadly. “He wasn’t there. Not inside either. So he probably has moved.”

“The logical destination would be engineering in this case. Even if he still doesn’t know what’s going on. If the door was locked, he would have wanted to know the reason and would go find Mr. Scott.”

Uhura nodded in agreement. “Just what I thought. To engineering then?”

Chekov grinned. “To engineering.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am finally back!!!
> 
> I'm so sorry, guys, that it took so long. First I really was busy and I couldn't find the time to read over the next chapter and then was I finally wanted to get back to it, the fic got reported and it was hidden for a month.
> 
> But it's finally back so that I can keep going.
> 
> I want to get back to my weekly updates but the next two weeks I'm on vacation so I don't know if I can manage that. I will try though. 
> 
> And now enjoy!

“We need to talk, Spock!” Leonard folded his arms. He didn’t look too pleased. They were keeping in touch with Uhura and Chekov for the last half hour and Spock was almost desperately clinging to the communicator in his hand. Since he took it from Leonard to speak to Uhura he hadn’t let it go. Regularly he checked in with them. That gave him at least the image that he was doing something. He felt utterly useless at the moment. He couldn't help the crew and more importantly, he couldn’t help the Captain. As first officer it was his duty to keep the Captain save. And Spock was not only locked in but severely injured as well. 

So Spock already guessed what the good doctor wanted to talk with him about. He turned to Leonard. “You do not look pleased.”

“Yeah, let me guess why.”

“I told you, Doctor, I am completely capable of using the communicator.”

A long judgemental look followed. “Should I get a mirror? So you can see how awful you look?” 

“I am convinced you are exaggerating.”

Leonard let out a frustrated sound and threw his arms in the air. “You are unbelievable, Spock. This is not some game. If you are exhausting yourself you just weaken your body.”

“How am I exhausting my body by talking through a communicator?” He tilted his head a little to the side. Of course he knew what Leonard was trying to say and he understood him to a certain degree but this whole situation was more complicated than that. Spock could not just forget about everything what was going on and let himself rest. He was the first Officer. He was responsible for every single crew member. And on the other end of that line was Nyota. Spock couldn’t just leave her alone.

Leonard took a deep breath. “I know how you feel, Spock. I would rather be out there as well. I have no idea if anyone is injured and needs my help. I want to be out there and do something. But we can’t. We are locked in. And  _ you _ are hurt. You need to allow yourself to step back from all of this. I know how you and Jim always want to do something, I know that you feel responsible for this entire crew but it will help no one if you die. You  _ need _ to perform this healing trance, else I’m not sure how long you will last.”

“Vulcans are very in line with their own bodies, much more than humans. I have still time.”

“Damn it, Spock.” Leonard raised his voice. It seemed like he was actually angry, not only frustrated with him. “I don’t want it to be a close call. I had this a few hours ago. Damn it, you died!”

“I am aware of that.”

“Are you? Because you don’t act like it. You just keep pushing and pushing until your body gives out.” 

Spock watched Leonard closely. Human emotions were still a mystery to him sometimes. Not that he didn’t understand them - he did. He just couldn’t understand why humans didn’t have control over them. In fact it was the other way around; emotions had control over humans. If Leonard would look logically at the whole situation, he would understand. He would see the necessity of Spock staying awake. 

Leonard let out a long sigh and ran his fingers through his hair. The doctor looked tired and exhausted. “Do you want to die, Spock?”

“No, of course not, Doctor.” He hadn’t wanted to die back on Altamid and he didn’t want to die now. Now that Spock knew what had held him back from performing the healing trance in the first place he would have no difficulties to perform it now. It would be easy. And he knew he had still a little time before it would be too late. “And I assure you, I will not.” 

“You’d better not because I will just bring you back to give you one hell of a lecture. I will be pissed, Spock.”

Spock raised the corner of his mouth a little. 

Leonard just rolled his eyes. “Oh god, stop that stupid grin. It’s irritating.” 

“I will promise you that I will undergo the healing trance before it is too late. I have no intention of dying or leaving anyone of you.” 

Mouth half open, Leonard stared at him. Spock’s honesty though seemed to irritate Leonard as well. He changed the subject. “Do you think Jim is okay?” 

“Jim is one of the most intelligent and capable Starfleet officers I have ever met. I am convinced he is doing fine.” 

Leonard huffed. “And he is one of the most reckless ones as well. He will run headfirst into a dangerous situation. And we have seen what this alien can do. It almost killed you, Spock. I would feel a lot better if I would know where Jim is right now.”

“I think the theory of Uhura and Chekov is solid. He most likely will be in engineering and talk to Mr. Scott.” 

“Yeah, and all we know, this alien could blew up engineering with overloading the warp core or something.” 

Although Spock had told Uhura to be careful he didn’t believe the alien to be as dangerous as they might think. Of course he had access to the whole computer system but if it wanted them all dead, they would already be dead. Instead they were just locked in and separated so that the crew couldn’t work together. Killing them all was not the main target of this creature. Spock was only injured because he had been an immediate threat in the situation. Maybe the alien needed some time to get to know the ship, to be able to get control, and if Spock had exposed it right then its mission could have been a failure. 

So Spock was pretty sure that Jim was fine, maybe also locked in somewhere but probably not hurt. 

“It could, yes, but I don’t think it will.”

Leonard looked at him confused. “What do you mean?”

“It could have killed us already. It just had to turn off life support and we would all die. But it just locked us in. It’s just keeping us apart so that we can’t get to it. It wants something else.”

“And that is?”

“That is something I don’t know yet.”

Leonard laughed shortly. “Maybe we should try to talk to it and just ask.”

Spock raised an eyebrow in surprise. “This is a very good idea, Doctor.” Spock was angry with himself for not thinking of it himself. Maybe his injury infected him more than he would like to admit. His train of thoughts didn’t come as easily to him as it used to. 

First Leonard seemed a little surprised as well but then grinned widely. “It is?” He seemed to be very proud of himself. 

“Yes. At least  _ if _ we can find a way to communicate with it, of course.”

“I usually start with a ‘hello’.” 

“I doubt that it will be that easy, Doctor.” 

Leonard shrugged. “With someone who is as unfriendly as you are it’s sometimes a ‘fuck off’ as well.”

Spock raised an eyebrow, confused about the sudden change of emotion from the doctor. A few minutes ago it appeared as if Leonard wanted to kill Spock himself and now he was joking and taunting Spock as if everything was normal. Actually it felt quite good. It gave Spock back some normalcy and a well needed distraction. If Spock was honest it was getting harder to keep up a facade. 

He was in pain and he had trouble concentrating. With Leonard in a better mood Spock felt lighter as well.

Spock knew that he wouldn’t be able to keep this up any longer but maybe a little more. If he could help Leonard to find a way to communicate with this being he would have helped. He would have done something.

And maybe they could solve this problem with talking. Maybe if they could get to know this new creature and understand what it wanted they could give it what it needed without either side getting hurt. At least without getting anyone else hurt.

“Spock, you’re okay?”

Spock startled out of his thoughts and looked bewildered at Leonard. He hadn’t noticed how deep he had been in his thoughts. It was unnerving. Maybe he should consider Leonard’s request and start with the trance. 

But not right now. First he had to find a way to communicate with this creature. They had to find a solution to this whole problem.

“Hey, hey, Spock, look at me.”

Spock furrowed his brow in confusion. He was looking at Leonard, wasn’t he? Only now that Leonard had said it Spock realized he hadn’t looked at him directly. The whole room was a little blurry. It was difficult to focus on the doctor. And a beeping sound made it hard to concentrate on his line of thought.

The creature was hiding or maybe even living in the computer system so they had to communicate over this medium. Maybe if Spock send out a similar wave like the creature caused when it came on the Enterprise it might seem like an invitation from their side. He just needed access to a terminal.

He wanted to stand up but somehow nothing changed. Apparently he was still sitting on the bed. Spock couldn't find an explanation for it. He clearly gave his body the order to move. 

“I don’t care how much time you think you still have. I say you don’t have any left so get the hell on with that trance, Spock.”

Once again Spock searched for Leonard’s eyes but it was difficult to focus. 

“I just need-" Spock tried to explain but was cut off by Leonard, “You don’t need anything. Do you feel that?”

A wave of bare emotion was flooding him. Deep concern. Almost pure fear. Spock just watched incredulously at Leonard. “Exactly! You’re scaring me right now.” When Leonard pulled his hand away from Spock’s the emotions were gone as quickly as they came but Spock felt a little clearer in his head now.

“I’m sorry, Leonard.” And Spock actually was. He didn’t want to upset Leonard in such a way. “Maybe you’re right.” Maybe Spock hadn’t assessed the situation correctly, hadn’t realized how broken his body was. Maybe he just _ wanted _ to tell himself that he was better than he actually was so that he could help with their situation. 

“I’m always right, Spock. So you should start listening to me.” 

Spock nodded. All of a sudden he felt utterly weak. He wasn’t able to say anything else.

“Are you ready? Can you do this trance now?”

Spock wanted to say ‘yes’, wanted to nod but he couldn’t anymore. He was concentrating on his pain, on his broken body. He made himself aware of every shattered piece. 

And he closed his eyes to deal with it.

  
  


Sulu liked sitting in the chair. In situations like these it was harder of course. Still, he hoped someday in the future he would have his own command, his own ship. Because this right now was part of being a Captain, and Sulu wanted it with all of it. 

With communications down and the turbolift out of order there was not much that Sulu could do. He had every crew member on the bridge search for the problem. The warp drive was still not working and on top of everything the ship seemed to have chosen its own destination. Without any command of the helm the ship had just turned around and was flying in a completely different direction as before. At least the maps for navigation were still working so they at least knew, where they were heading. 

Some M-class planet, called Hephas, which they would arrive in appropriately ninety minutes. While most of the crew members were looking into their current problem he had one ordered to get every information they had on this planet. If Sulu couldn’t prevent them from going there he at least wanted to be prepared when they arrived. 

“Lieutenant Sulu, I might have found something.” 

Sulu turned around in his chair and was surprised that it was the new Ensign, Trevis, who apparently had found something. So Sulu stood up immediately and walked over to the station, standing behind him and looking over his shoulder. “What have you got?”

Trevis showed a little smile and turned back to his console. “I have gone over some past data - when Commander Spock woke up shortly, he was very eager to tell the Captain something important so that got me thinking, maybe he had noticed something. So I went over the data we got during the attack and something is missing. The data right after the attack is just gone.” 

Sulu furrowed his brows. “Maybe it got destroyed during the explosion?” 

Trevis shook his head. “At first I thought so, too, but there is clear indication that it got deleted. It’s only a few seconds that are missing, right after they fired at us.” 

“So someone deleted it? We have an intruder on board?” 

“That’s my guess.” 

“So someone is messing with our computers. Is that even possible to such a degree?” 

Trevis shook his head. “No, not without being at the main computer.”

“Mr. Scott was still there when it started. He would have reported back to us. So it’s something else?”

“My guess it’s  _ in _ the computer.”

“So we have a virus?”

Trevis waited a little longer with his answer, “Could be, yes.”

“You don’t sound too convinced about this, Ensign. Speak your mind.” 

Sulu needed every detail about this. This wasn’t something he was good at so he needed to trust on his crew members and Trevis seemed to be smart. At least he was the first to notice  _ something _ . Even if his theory wouldn’t be correct, it would be a place to start.

“I don’t know much about computer viruses, Lieutenant Commander Scott would probably be able to give a clearer answer.”

“He isn’t here right now and we can’t talk to him. So what do  _ you _ think?”

“I don’t think it’s a virus actually. A virus would be leaving traces. The data we gathered so far shows that nothing is wrong with the Enterprise. But as deep as we were digging we would have found at least  _ something _ that would lead us to the virus. Or we would have smashed against a wall because it was shutting us out. Nothing like that, sir.It just doesn’t look like a virus.”

“And what then?”

Trevis turned back in Sulu’s direction. “A life form?” 

Sulu shrugged with his shoulders. “This wouldn’t be the weirdest thing we have seen so far.” They have seen a lot of strange stuff in their three years together. And so far they had always found a way to deal with it. They would now too. 

At least they now knew what they were dealing with - at least kind of. They weren’t completely in the dark anymore. So he returned back to the Captain’s chair but kept standing. “I want that everyone looks for any kind of inconsistencies in the computer. If there is really something in there it has to leave a trace. Maybe you can find this alien and we can trap it. Understood?”

Everyone nodded and got back to their work. 

A few minutes later all was back to the same working silence that had surrounded them before Trevis had shared his findings. At least until the screen in front of them suddenly turned on. The black vastness of space was gone and a hallway of the Enterprise was shown.

“What is that?” Sulu wanted to know. 

“I don’t know, Sir,” the Ensign who had taken Chekov’s place answered. “I didn’t do anything.”

Sulu watched the screen closely and a few seconds later the Captain walked into the picture. Not sensing anything good from this, Sulu tensed up in his chair. “What do you want?” he talked loudly now, sure that this thing that was on board could hear them. 

“I want - you - to listen - to me.”

It was weird. This alien hadn’t an own voice - or it didn’t use its own voice. The fragments of the sentence were all familiar voices. The Captain, Spock, or even his own. Maybe he had access to the records of the Enterprise and used them to communicate with them.

“Okay, I’m listening. Tell me, what you want.”

“You - see - I have - control.” To prove his point the image changed. It switched from the Captain to medbay, where Leonard was talking to Connors, and Spock was lying on a biobed. Then it switched to their Chief engineer.

Sulu tried to maintain a neutral expression. “I can see that. So what do you want?” Sulu hated to ask more than once. This alien wanted them to listen but it didn’t talk. This was a little frustrating. 

“You have - to follow - my orders.”

Sulu leaned back in his chair. “Yeah, no problem. Just tell us what to do and we will do it.” He threw a look over to Trevis and pointed inconspicuously on the screen. He just hoped that Trevis understood that he tried to tell him that he should examine the energy readings that this trick of the alien just caused. Maybe they could find it after all. 

“You will - leave - this ship.”

Sulu kept talking, “Right now? In the middle of nowhere?”

“No. Later. When we arrive at this planet.” 

“You mean the M-class planet that you are chauffeuring us to?” 

“Yes.” 

“So what is in it for us?”

“You do not - die.”

Sulu waited for a second, and although he couldn’t see this alien he hoped it would make it nervous. “That is a fair offer. What did the Captain say to that?”

“Your Captain - does not - want to - comply.”

Sulu smiled amused. “He can be a little pain in the ass sometimes, right?” 

“I do not - know - what - that means.” 

“He can get on your nerves. He is very stubborn sometimes. And I can assure you,” Sulu leaned forward and putting on a serious expression now. “He won’t falter. He is one of the best Captains in Starfleet and he won’t give up.”

“You will - die.” 

“You have no idea with whom you are dealing with.” 

For the first time there was a pause until the creature answered, “He said - the same.”

Although it was hard to read any emotions out of this robotic voices Sulu almost thought the alien to be surprised about this. “Of course. We are a good crew and loyal to our Captain. We will fight alongside him. We are more than a crew.” He looked in the round on the bridge and although there were a lot of new faces since the attack on Altamid Sulu didn’t feel any different. “We are almost something like a family.”  

“Your - family?”

“Family means your mother and your father or your own children. And sometimes they’re people who you have chosen yourself. People who are important to you.” 

“You would do - anything - for them?”

Sulu stood up now, facing the screen where he still could watch the Captain roaming the halls. “I would do  _ anything _ for them.”

Without any warning the screen shut off, the window to the stars returned and Sulu knew that the alien was gone for now. He had no idea if this was a good or a bad sign now but he just hoped the former. They still had time before they reached the planet. It sounded like the alien just wanted to abandon them on the planet. If he had wanted to do anything else he surely had done it already. Maybe he didn’t want to kill anyone if it could be prohibited. 

He turned to his crew. “So, did we get anything from this transmission? Some way to find it?”

“I think so, Lieutenant,” Trevis reported. “And I think I have an idea.” 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, half of the fic is done with this chapter!  
> I hope you all enjoyed it till now :)

Despite what the creature had told him Jim had returned to medbay. At least he had to try to get inside but the computer told him over and over that the medbay was under quarantine. Of course Jim knew that wasn’t true. They hadn’t brought anything on board that could get dangerous. It was just the alien’s way of sealing the people into this room. 

Jim hammered against the door. “Bones? Can you hear me?” He waited for several seconds but there was no answer. Of course he couldn’t hear him. These doors were meant to stop deadly bacteria. They wouldn’t let through his voice. And yet he only wanted to know if Spock was okay. Bones had been utterly scared and this terrified Jim. If Spock’s doctor was worried he should be too. He just wanted to know if Spock was still alive. So he hammered once more against the door. “Come on, Bones, answer,” he yelled a little louder now. 

“He is - important - to you?” 

Jim turned around, ready to fight, although he knew that the alien wasn’t there. Not in front of him. He was like a ghost that could see everything. That was  _ everywhere _ . 

“Of course. Spock is my friend. And Bones too.” Jim stepped away a little from the door. “Are they okay?” That was all that Jim wanted to know. He didn’t need to see them necessarily. Knowing that they were okay would be enough for now. 

“They are - alive.” 

Jim let out a relieved sigh. At least that was something. They were still breathing. So he could concentrate his focus on the alien again. “What do you want? I still have about an hour. I still have time.” 

“I talked to - Lieutenant Sulu. He is loyal.” 

Jim couldn’t help the smile that spread on his face. He was so proud of his entire crew and hearing that they were loyal to him left a warm feeling inside of him. “I told you that they will all fight you. That we are a team and we keep together.” 

“A family?”

Surprised Jim raised an eyebrow but nodded finally. “Yeah you could say we are something like a family. We take care and help each other.” 

A pause followed, then “I will let you inside.” And with that the doors behind him opened. With wide eyes Jim turned around, couldn’t quite understand what was going on but he didn’t really care. He could get to his friends and see for himself if they were really okay. 

But before going inside, he asked, “Will you let me out also? Our deal still stands, right?”

“This door - will - stay open.” 

Okay, that was enough. Jim just had to trust it now. He would see for himself if it would be a mistake or not if he entered the room. But right now Jim didn’t really care about the consequences. So he stepped over the threshold. 

“Bones!” he said out loud to make notice of himself.

He took a few more steps inside and Bones was already all around him, with a buzzing medical tricorder. Normally Jim would have just rolled his eyes, now he couldn’t fight the smile. “I’m fine.” 

“Yeah, let me be the judge of that. You are still only the captain and not a doctor.” 

“Speaking of … Doctor, how is our patient?” 

Bones’ expression changed immediately. The joy that was showing, probably because Jim was back, vanished. But Jim couldn’t quite interprete this new expression. “Bones? How is he?” Jim knew he was alive, at least if the alien had spoken the truth. Maybe Jim only believed him because he wished it to be true.

“He is in a healing trance now. He scared me for a second again but now it’s really all up to him. I can’t help him anymore.”

Jim furrowed his brow. “Healing trance?”

“It’s a Vulcan technique to heal your own body. Don’t ask me about it. I just hope it’ll work for him. Connors keeps an eye on him, he has some experience with that kind of stuff.”

Jim smiled. “So it was a good choice to get him on board?” He nudged him gently.

Bones grumbled, “Yeah, yeah.” 

Jim leaned a little closer, got more serious again. “And you’re okay too?” He didn’t forget the little outburst of emotion that Bones had the last time Jim had been in here. And he just said that Spock scared him again. Being so close to it and not be able to do anything about it had to be horrible. Jim didn’t want to think about it. He hated doing nothing. He hated to just have to watch. That’s why this whole situation was bothering him so much. There was nothing he could actually do. Although he had access to all rooms, Jim hadn’t found anything suspicious. Sometimes he stumbled upon a few crew members but that was about it. If he tried to free them the consequence had been that Jim would be trapped to. In the end everyone of them had been okay to be left behind so that Jim could continue his search. With every new room he had been in Jim had been more certain that this creature had no physical body. Still, he had to do something so he kept going. 

Returning to medbay had just be his own weakness. He had gotten desperate and in front of the other crew members he had encountered he couldn’t confess to that. Bones was one of the few people he could talk to. So his feet had brought him back here, in hope he could just talk to his friend. And he got lucky. Jim was actually standing in front of Bones.

Bones just waved dismissively with his hand. “Yeah, I’m fine. What about you? You know what’s going on?”

Jim raised an eyebrow in surprise. “You do?”

Bones smiled a little. “Our clever Vulcan had seen something before he was attacked. We know for a while. So does Uhura and Chekov. They were trying to find you. How did you find out?”

Jim shrugged. “It talked to me.” 

“Oh, of course. I have to peek around in Spock’s head and you are just lucky that it likes you.” 

“Peek around in Spock’s head?” Jim raised an eyebrow.

Bones shook his head. “Don’t ask. Okay, so you probably know a little more than we do, right? You probably became best friends immediately.”

“It wants us to leave our ship.” Jim grabbed Bones elbow and gently pushed him into his office. Connors was still in the room and although Jim had no problem that he heard what was going on, Jim wanted to talk a little more openly with Bones and he didn’t need any witnesses for that. “I don’t want to lose her again, Bones,” he confessed after he closed the door behind them. 

“Jim, it’s only a ship.” Although Jim knew Bones wasn’t as emotionally attached to the Enterprise than he was, Bones’ voice was gentle and understanding. “If we have no choice left we need to leave Enterprise.” 

With a tired sigh Jim let himself fall on Bones’ chair in front of the desk. “We just flew off with her again. It’s only a couple of days.” 

Bones tried to lighten the mood, “We have the best of luck, don’t we?” 

Jim laughed at this. “I can’t understand how anyone want to be part of our crew.” 

Suddenly Bones’ face was right in front of him. He had kneeled down to be able to look him in the eye. “Because it’s the best damn ship with the best Captain you can find. They all want to serve under you, Jim. And I understand them. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.” 

“So what do we do, Bones?”

Bones smiled. “What we always do. We find hope in the impossible.” 

With wide eyes he looked at Bones. “Are you quoting Spock right now?”

“Don’t ever tell him that. He won’t let me live it down.”

Jim would never turn his friend in like that, at least if Bones behaved. He surely had a leverage with that. Maybe even a “get ouf of medbay”-card if he used this wisely. He certainly would remember this for future occasions. 

“So what do you know, Jim?” 

“It is flying us to some planet and wants to abandon us there. To have the Enterprise for itself.”

Bones furrowed his brow. “But why? What does it want with the ship?”

Jim shook his head. “I have no idea. It didn’t tell me everything. Would have been too easy, right?” 

“Spock said that it probably doesn’t want to hurt us. Except the accident that Spock had we all are pretty alive right now. He pointed out that it could have killed us a hundred times already if it had wanted to. And now you tell me that it wants to get us off the ship so it can take over. That fits to Spock’s theory. It doesn’t want to harm us. It wants the Enterprise but it doesn’t want to kill for it. It takes the effort to get us to a nice planet so we can survive.” 

“Surviving is good. Winning is better.” 

“If winning has no casualties I’m all on board.” 

Jim smiled. He wouldn’t aim for a win if half of his crew had to die for it, that was for sure. He would only fight if there was no risk for anybody. If anything they tried would fail Jim was ready to leave this ship behind. The crew was more important than a ship. They could build a new one. They couldn’t just bring back someone to life. The priorities were clear here. 

“I spoke to Scotty. He is trying to find a way to get to this alien. And you know, Scotty, he always finds something.” 

“Yeah, he loves this ship even more than you do. He won’t give it up without a fight.” 

“You have no - chance.” 

Jim looked up to the ceiling, as if he was now able to see this alien. Bones stood up and Jim saw him shooting a questionable look over to Jim so Jim just nodded to him. “We will see about that. We still have a little time,” he said to the alien. 

“I can - change - the rules.”

“Rules?” Bones mouthed to him.

“How do you want to change them? You already changed them when you let me in here, remember?”

“This was not - I can stop - you. I can stop - Lieutenant Commander Scott.”

Bones’ eyes widened in panic. Jim could guess what he was thinking about, Jim had the same fear. They all saw what he could do and what he was willing to do if someone was a threat to him. Maybe Scotty got close to it. Damn, Jim gave him the order to dig. If he had found it, and the alien felt threatened… Jim couldn’t let anyone else of his friends get hurt. “Okay, let’s talk again. We change the rules. Whatever you want.”

“No - I need - this ship. You can’t - stop me.” 

Jim turned around to Bones. “Get down to engineering.” Bones didn’t waste any time with an answer, only rushed out of the room. Jim just hoped he would be there fast enough or if not that he could still save Scotty’s life.

“Why do you need this ship so badly? Why would you kill for it?” This was the question of all questions. If Jim knew what the motives of this alien were maybe they could find a way around it. Maybe they could find a solution so that both parties would be satisfied with the outcome. “Tell me, and we can talk about it. Do you need to get somewhere? We can take you there.”

“I need - only - this ship.” 

“Why?” 

“It’s good - it’s fast - it’s Federation.” 

Jim furrowed his forehead, still not sure why this alien needed this ship so badly. “Yes, we are Federation. We don’t come to fight. We explore and we help.” 

“Help?”

Jim nodded enthusiastically, hoping that he was on the right track to get the alien’s trust. “Yes, we can help. Whatever it is, we can try to help.” 

There was a long pause and Jim feared that the alien had chosen to end this conversation. “Please, just tell me about it and we can talk. We can think of a solution together. And if we don’t find one you can still drop us on this planet and conduct your old plan. How does that sound?” 

Yet again there was silence, proof enough for Jim that the alien had really chosen to end this discussion. Jim had hoped he could keep it occupied and that it couldn’t do everything at the same time so that if he kept talking to him maybe it was too busy to get to Scotty and hurt him. 

“Are you still there?” he tried one last time and felt utterly stupid out of a sudden. He stood in a little room, talking to himself. So if the alien decided to stay quiet, Jim decided to do something. He walked back into the big room of medbay.

“Doctor Connors, do you still have the communicator?” 

“It’s over at the desk.”

Jim took it and was ready to leave medbay. He couldn’t do anything from here. One last time he turned around to Connors. “You stay here and take care of Spock. I want him back in his old shape, understood?”

Connors smiled. “I think he is on a good way. So you don’t worry, Sir, and get this alien that did this to him.”

Jim already liked Connors. He would be a great asset to the team. “I will.”

 

Out on the hallway he opened a comm link. “Uhura, you’re there?”

“Jim! It’s good to hear your voice. You finally found a communicator?” 

Jim smiled to himself. “I stole it from medbay. Bones is on the way down to engineering. I want you and Chekov to head down there as well. Scotty might be in danger and we need to get in there.” 

“On our way, Captain.” 

Jim stopped for a second and was thinking if he should head down there himself or if he rather tried to get up on the bridge. They were already three people down there. If they couldn’t find a way inside Jim wouldn’t be able to help either. So he turned around when Sulu’s voice was sounding over the ship’s communicators. First he thought it was the alien again but the voice didn’t change and it was way to cheery to be a recording. 

“This is Lieutenant Sulu speaking. We have won back the ship’s communication and we are about to get the rest.”

“Make them - stop. Or they will - die.”

Jim didn’t doubt a second that this threat was true. He stepped to the nearest communication panel and pressed the button. “This is Captain James Kirk. I want every crew member to step away from their computers. Don’t engage any further. That’s an order.” He didn’t care about winning when it meant that people had to die. He was sure that they could defeat him but if the alien only took one life it wouldn’t be a win. Jim would rather try to talk to it once again. He had the feeling that they were getting somewhere in medbay and then it just vanished. Maybe it had sensed the trouble and tried to stop his crew to take the computer back. 

“Wise choice - Captain.” 

“I don’t want to see anybody die. And I think you don’t either. You just need this ship desperately and you will do anything to get it, right?”

“I need - it.” 

“I know.” Jim tried to sound sympathetic. “But you have to understand that this ship is our home. It’s important to us. And my crew, they will try anything to prevent you from getting it.”

“Then they will - die.” 

Jim took a deep breath. He didn’t like the sound of that. He didn’t want to hear about any of his crew members dying. “You don’t want to kill, I know this. So let me help you. Let us  _ talk _ .” 

“You can’t - help.”

“You don’t even give us the chance to try. Maybe we can help. Maybe we have a solution to the problem. Would it harm you to talk to us, to listen to our ideas? You can still keep flying to this planet. But how much time do we have left? Half an hour? In this time we can talk and if after that you still think we can’t help, then we will leave this ship.” 

“No tricks?”

Jim held up his hands. “No tricks. Just let us talk.”

“You and me?” 

“I would like to get 5 other people into the round if it’s okay for you. If not, then only you and me.” 

“Call them. I will let - them - get to you.” 

Jim couldn’t believe that that actually worked. Maybe they all could figure something out together. So he turned back to the communicator. “Scotty, Bones, Uhura, Chekov and Sulu. I need you in the conference room. The doors will open for you.” 

Uhura’s voice came back over the portable communicator. “We’re on our way.”

Sulu also reported that he would be there shortly. So Jim made his way to the conference room himself.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi to me on [tumblr](http://beyondtriumvirate.tumblr.com/) :)


End file.
